Metamorphosis
by Haleine Delail
Summary: Dr. Helen Sharpe of New Amsterdam Hospital treats a patient who was injured when a building caved in, and who forces her to confront her past, and new, difficult truths. The two of them (and others) return to the building to rescue someone else, an unexpected challenge arises, and the solution is incredibly empowering for the good doctor, and her friend.
1. Chapter 1

**First and foremost, I want to clarify: if you're a fan of _New Amsterdam_ and not _Doctor Who_, this story might prove a little confusing to you. It's not very New Amsterdam-y in the end, however, I encourage you to give it a go, especially if you think Helen Sharpe is awesome. **

**If you are a _Doctor Who _but not a _New Amsterdam_ fan, just read. You'll be up to speed in no time!**

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**Call it a cheap trick if you like, but it's incredibly tempting to write crossovers for two 'verses that include one of the same actors. I've read _Angel/Bones_ crossovers, _Buffy/Torchwood_, etc. and they're just so much fun! I've played with this a bit, using another screen name, crossing _Doctor Who_ with_ Law and Order UK, The Secret Diary of a Call Girl, _and _Harry Potter._ It's too juicy to pass up! (I'm having to sit on my hands to keep from doing a _Doctor Who/Jessica Jones_ crossover because it would be so damn dark, I don't know if I could go there. But who are we kidding? We all know what happens when I get plot bunnies under my shed.)**

**Anyway, as you may have guessed, this all came about when I began watching a hospital drama on NBC that includes Freema Agyeman running around in a white lab coat, solving non-routine problems brilliantly, playing the right-hand-gal of a tall, brilliant, sharp-featured, enigmatic, charming, painfully flawed but painfully good doctor, with whom she may or may not be in love. I decided to wait until the end of the season to find out where her character goes, but in the end, I found that 'Helen Sharpe' is not at all unlike Martha Jones. Plucky, clever, good-hearted, resourceful, no-nonsense, sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, and... SHE'S A DOCTOR. Come on!**

**Not much is known about Helen's past, except that she was engaged at some point to a man named Mohammed, who died of a brain aneurysm. There is nothing in this story to suggest Mohammed ever existed, but it doesn't negate his existence either. I'm leaving him for you to retcon for the purposes of this story, in your own way.**

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**I don't think this story will be very long - definitely not epic. Just a fun jaunt into a "what-if" that I thought worth exploring! And it's my first time writing for the Thirteenth Doctor! I had to give her her due!**

****Please excuse me - I am not a medic. I've been in and out of the ED at various times in my life, but undoubtedly, if you are in-the-know, you will find major flaws in my emergency-room protocols, and my medical knowledge. I did my best... tried to be logical, use what I know. Please be kind.**

**And now... here we go. (Can't say _allons-y _to start off this one, unfortunately!) ;-)**

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ONE

"Seriously? Bloody hell," Helen Sharpe sighed, as Casey Acosta shoved five clipboards at her, containing five separate sets of discharge papers.

"Bloody hell," Bronx-born Casey replied, trying to mimic her accent, and chuckling. He watched her deliver her loopy HS, and the indiscriminate squiggle that passed for the rest of her surname. She then scrawled a quick and dirty M.D. at the end, completing her intentionally affected signature. She did it five times, and Casey took a step back from her. Again, he tried to imitate her accent, though did a job of it worthy of Dick Van Dyke. "Loverly. Thanks, then. Cheerio."

"Heh… funny," she said to him, with exhausted, droopy eyes, and a dry smile. She normally didn't mind when Americans tried to get their British on - it was often cute and usually done in good fun. But today, it was annoying. Although, truth be told, from Casey, she would put up with almost anything because he was possibly the quickest, most knowledgeable and resourceful nurse in the building, and she had great respect for him.

Casey winked, and bounded away, ready to discharge five patients from New Amsterdam's ED, making room in five more beds, which would undoubtedly be occupied in a matter of minutes.

The ED was slammed, and she, an oncologist, had wound up in charge. Her erstwhile friend, Lauren Bloom, the hospital's usual Head of the ED, was still away in rehab. Dr. Candelario (whose first name she still didn't know – Helen and Candelario had a bristly relationship), the temporary Head, was out with the flu, and Max…

Ugh, Max. He was sitting down to chemo at the moment, and getting him to do so had been a fight. The hospital's charming and wicked-clever Medical Director had resisted treating his cancer, because he'd thought if he kept running from it, it would never catch him. This was absurd, of course, but it was the sort of irrational thing Helen knew that terrified people sometimes told themselves.

Today was his third session, and it had taken hell and high water (well, high snow), not to mention some tough love, to get him motivated to save his own life. She wasn't going to bother him now with a small matter like, _the ED is flooded and your Deputy Medical Director is losing her goddamn mind trying to direct traffic on her own._ He couldn't afford the time spent away from focusing on his own health, and that was that.

And Helen couldn't afford any more time spent with Max. She attempted to convince herself that that fact was neither here nor there in her decision-making process today, but who was she kidding? She had already tried her best to refute the Helen/Max "vibe" that her boyfriend Akash had mentioned with that _I dare you to deny it _look on his face, but ultimately, she'd been down this road one too many times to lie to herself.

There was a vibe.

Call it attraction, call it kindred souls, call it codependency, call it chemistry, call it a fast and furious friendship…

Call it whatever. It was a vibe. There was _something _there. And if Akash was any indicator, then she and Max weren't the only people feeling it. That probably meant that Bloom (her close friend) felt it, most likely Reynolds (surprisingly sensitive), and definitely Frome (psychiatrist, practically psychic)…

…though, hopefully not Georgia, a.k.a. Mrs. Max and soon-to-be mother of his child. When Helen thought of Georgia, she became sick to her stomach with guilt. Even though she had done nothing to feel guilty about.

In her younger days, when she'd been in this boat, denial of the phenomenon had proven, at best, useless. And once she'd acknowledged the ultimately hopeless feelings, failing to extract herself from the situation had proven agonising… until she'd got, decidedly, out. And she'd learned her lesson. It meant that she had to get out from under _the vibe_, and keep her distance from Max.

Therefore, with the ED in flames, she triaged as best she could. She ran from bed to bed, approving treatments, diagnosing, helping prep for an appendectomy, holding down a seizure patient, getting vomited on, bled on, cursed at, her attention demanded, her credentials questioned, and every other manner of disgusting treatment available to a doctor at New Amsterdam.

It was one hell of a life she'd taken on when she decided to cut down on her media appearances, and resume practicing actual _medicine_, alongside the cheeky new Medical Director.

Again, Max on the brain.

A shiny new doctor with a funny turn of phrase and twinkly eyes, a bit swaggering, a bit boyish, uprooting her life. Never a dull moment. Always a challenge. Always running, always problem-solving, always life and death…

When the hell would she learn?

"Dr. Sharpe!" a voice called from across the ED. A female nurse whose name she had recently learned and promptly forgotten, was standing at reception, holding the telephone.

Helen jogged across the floor. "What's up?"

"There's been a cave-in nearby… some abandoned building, full of squatters," said the nurse. "There are some being treated at the scene, and nineteen others have been loaded into ambulances. About a third are being brought here."

"Okay, here we go," Helen said, with a big sigh. She thought, _Cool in a crisis, me. Just give me a white lab coat and a problem of astronomical proportions – that's my wheelhouse._

_Or, it used to be._

"Do we call Dr. Goodwin?" the nurse asked, knowing that Max was excellent at thinking outside the box in a situation like this.

"No – he's got to stay in the dark about this, or else he'll rush down here, and we can't have that. We'll be fine," Helen insisted, relatively calmly. "We've got five empty beds at the moment – see if you and the others can clear at least two more – maybe three. Have someone call upstairs and see if everyone except the ICU and NICU can go on skeleton crew for an hour... or whatever time they can spare, and send help down here. Maybe even beds. Call Kapoor and Reynolds first."

"On it," said the nurse, picking up the phone.

Helen felt distinctly sheepish at that moment, about not remembering her name. Later on, she would come clean, apologise, and ask to be told again.

The first two gurneys came bursting through the doors, with EMTs in-tow, reporting on injuries sustained, blood pressure and other vital signs. A doctor jumped on the first case, and two available nurses jumped on the second.

Helen listened to the chaos, tried to discern what was happening to each patient, and attempted to direct traffic…

The indomitable Casey reached the door just in time to meet the third gurney, where a woman was unconscious, and had a gash in her forehead, bleeding quite a bit. A male EMT was holding an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth, and looking panicked.

"Talk to me," said Casey, checking the woman's pupils for concussion.

"Mid-grade concussion," said the EMT, stuttering just a bit.

"I can see that," Casey snapped. "What else? BP?"

"That's what's weird – I can't get a stable one."

"What do you mean?"

"It was a one-twenty-one over ninety," said the EMT. "When I took it again a minute later, it was ninety over one-fifteen."

"What?"

"I took it again a minute later, and it skyrocketed. Took it again, it dropped. You get the idea. Anyway, she's also barely breathing – something's obstructing her air, but we don't know what."

"Was she in the building that collapsed?"

"Yeah."

Casey frowned, and momentarily studied her. "She doesn't look like a squatter."

Helen had heard. She and Casey made eye-contact for a moment, just as a fourth gurney burst through the door. No-one was closer, so Helen ran to catch it, instructing Casey, "Get her on oxygen, and a BP monitor first and start recording the results at thirty-second intervals – you can put a CNA on it. Treat the gash, and get her a chest x-ray."

Casey nodded, though he probably could have come up with all of that stuff on his own, and he began to wheel the woman to the nearest bed. It didn't take much for him and the EMT to left her over, and the EMT left with his gurney, seeming relieved.

The fourth patient through the door, the one to which Helen was now attending, reported that his name was Kevin McShane, and his right foot was literally turned sideways. He was clearly in agony, but handling it incredibly well. He had to be triaged beside Casey's patient until personnel could be secured to bring him up to radiology, then prep him for surgery, but Helen promised him some pain medication, ASAP.

She was taking his vitals so as to get a proper dosage of pain medication, when the woman on Casey's gurney opened her eyes.

"Oh God, oh God," she cried out. She tried to sit up, and she pulled off her oxygen mask. "Where am I? What's happened? Where are my friends?"

To Helen's surprise, the woman appeared to be British. The accent wasn't London like hers, but it was definitely from Across the Pond.

"Calm down, ma'am, everything's going to be okay. You were in a building that collapsed," Casey told her, trying gently to coax her into lying back down. "Please lie down so we… whoa. Whoa! Dr. Sharpe, her oxygen saturation has jumped back up to ninety-seven per cent. A minute ago it was at sixty, and dropping. And this is _after_ removing her mask."

"That's weird," Helen said, prepping an IV for the man with the sideways foot. "Good news though. But if we don't know why – if Max were here, he would want to go ahead with an x-ray."

"No, no x-ray!" the woman shouted, sitting up, again. To Casey, she said, "And no offence, but I don't want you – I want her."

Helen looked up. The woman was staring directly at her, and indicating her to anyone who would listen.

"Dr. Sharpe is busy with the other patient, ma'am, but my name is Casey, and I can assure you…"

"No! I want her!" the woman insisted. With that, she looked at Casey with worried, pleading eyes. "Please?"

Helen took a moment to look her over. She was sitting down, but Helen assessed her to be about five-foot-six, which was taller than herself, and thin. She had blonde hair cut in a chin-length bob, and her clothing was, well, generally eccentric. She was wearing a purple t-shirt, with coloured stripes across the bust, along with blue trousers that seemed to be a size or two too large. Yellow braces hung from the waist, as though they'd long forgotten the woman had shoulders, and the cuffs were rolled up to mid-shin. On her feet were lace-up boots.

The woman looked at Helen with a supplicating stare.

The last gurney from the collapse came in, and another doctor was able to get it carted off to an appropriate location. All of the beds were filled, the place was in a bustling state of chaos, but at the moment, there was, miraculously, nothing demanding Helen's specific attention.

Casey shrugged, and said softly to Helen, "Saw you on TV, I guess."

The woman said, genuinely apologetically, "I'm sorry but it's really important that only she examine me."

"Okay, then. Casey, please finish inserting this IV, and get Mr. McShane ten milligrams of morphine. Then see who's up in Radiology that can come down and fetch him," Helen said.

He did as she asked, and the two swapped positions.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Sharpe," Helen said to the woman, and now digging into a drawer for some alcohol and gauze. "Well, with your oxygen saturation up, we can afford to patch up your head, so let's do that first, eh? What's your name?"

"Erm… Jane," said the woman. "Jane Smith."

Helen stopped in her tracks and looked back. "Jane Smith? Really?"

"Yeah. Problem?"

"No, just… interesting name."

"Think so?"

"Well… sort of, yeah," said Helen. Suddenly, her heart was racing, though she didn't quite know why.

Jane seemed to be watching her very intently as she prepared supplies to clean and bandage the gash on her forehead.

"Been working here long?" asked the patient.

"A few years," Helen replied. "Actually, as you might know, I'm in oncology. But our hospital's in a bit of turmoil at the moment, so… here I am in the ED."

"You must be brilliant. Versatile."

"I do my best."

"Oh, I can definitely see that."

Helen then sat down on a stool and began to clean the wound.

"See, this isn't so bad," she said. "That's the thing about knocks to the noggin – when they bleed, they always look worse than they are."

"Right," said Ms. Smith, still staring at her. She seemed to be studying Helen, as if from afar. She had dramatic features, with a prominent nose and knowing, penetrating eyes, that made Helen feel a bit on-the-back-foot.

"So, Jane, any particular reason why you wanted _me _to do this? Honestly, Casey's the best nurse we've got, more than capable of getting your little scrape-up taken care of."

"No doubt," said Jane. "But I, er… I don't know, you just seem like someone I can trust."

Helen chuckled. She whispered, "It's the British thing, isn't it? You don't want to leave it to the Americans."

Jane laughed along with her. She had an adorable smile, with a crinkled nose, and eyes that sparkled. "Yep. That must be it," she said.

"So where are you from?"

"Oh… well, life as I know it began in Sheffield."

"I see," Helen said, nodding. "I could have guessed northerner. I'm from London, 'case you couldn't tell."

"Yeah, I knew that."

Within a minute or so, Helen was applying the final bandage to the patient's forehead, and saying, "There, that's done it. Now, let's look at your BP and oxygen, just to see what's going on there."

Casey had already applied the cuff for the BP monitor, and the machine had been taking Jane's vitals every thirty seconds since. Helen looked at the readout, and saw that the EMT had been correct – her blood pressure was erratic.

"Ms. Smith, please lie back," Helen requested as she inserted the earpieces of her stethoscope.

"I thought you'd never ask," Jane said, smiling slightly as she allowed her back to press against the bit of bed that had been raised to a one-hundred-twenty-degree angle.

It occurred to Helen in these moments that she was being flirted-with.

But that feeling left her quickly when she pressed the auscultator to Ms. Smith's chest. She heard a heartbeat all right… and also the distinct echo of a second one.

_Déjà vu_ flooded Helen Sharpe's senses, and for a moment, she was blind with the deluge of memories. After that moment, a flutter in her stomach caused a slight panic.

She moved the auscultator down slightly, and to the right side of the patient's rib cage, and there it was, the second heartbeat.

Her eyes instinctively moved up to Jane's, and as if on cue, the patient winked at her.

Helen's own heard leapt into her throat. She recoiled into the medic behind her, attending to another patient. "Oh my God," she breathed.

"Everything all right, Dr. Sharpe?" asked the man she'd run into.

"Yes, yes," Helen covered. "It's fine… sorry. Sorry."

Jane looked at her intently, refusing to break eye-contact, but said nothing more for the moment.

Helen returned to reception, to the nurse whose name she'd forgotten. She indicated Jane Smith to her, and said, "Will you please escort that patient to my office?"

The nurse's face contorted into a bizarre frown. "Really? Why?"

"Please, just do it," Helen replied. "And no need to mention it to anyone."

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**Okay, so... whaddya think? Drop me a line, leave me a review... and again, please forgive my bad medicine and/or ED etiquette.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Well, I don't have much to say here except, I think you'll like this chapter! :-D**

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TWO

"Virginia, it's Helen," Sharpe said into her phone, practically whispering.

"Yes, I know," said the salty, jaded Virginia Staunton, Doctor of oncology, on the other end, mimicking her whisper. "What can I do for you?"

With her normal voice, Helen asked, "How close is Max to the end of his session?"

"An hour or more, why?"

Helen cursed under her breath. "Because I need him. I mean, the ED needs him. And I need to… the ED needs him."

"Well, everyone needs him Dr. Sharpe, but isn't that what you're doing in his absence, as his _Deputy_?"

"Yes, it's just, something's come up…" Helen said, glancing at her office door, knowing that _Jane Smith_ was inside. She felt dread rising in her stomach, thinking of trying to finish out the madness in the ED, while _this_ madness waited for her. But she also knew that this was, ultimately, a selfish errand, and the reason she needed Max was more personal than professional. "Never mind. Please have him contact me when he's able."

"Good. I'll tell him," Virginia said flatly, before cutting off the call.

Helen bit her lip, and steeled herself.

The past had come knocking at her door, and she didn't quite know how to handle it. More accurately, it had come bursting through the ED on a gurney, with an erratic BP, and she felt totally derailed. _That _part of her life was not just another chapter, it might as well be in a different century, and on a different planet. And actually, it very often had been.

The fact was, Helen Sharpe was not entirely who she claimed to be. She was not a fraud – she was, in point of fact, a highly-trained, well-honed, extremely versatile medical professional. She was a brilliant doctor. An intellectual. A woman of science. A woman of the world, and at one time, a woman of the universe.

But part of her was still living a lie. She reminded herself that a person who lived as she did should not be surprised nor rattled when old memories came to call… and yet, here she was, both surprised and rattled.

Because, _this _particular memory was poignant, indeed. She had thought that perhaps it might rear its head again during her lifetime, but for it to be presented to her in this way… she wanted to scream _what the fuck?_ at the top of her lungs from the roof of the building. She wanted to explode with confusion and excitement and resentment, and every other emotion. That woman in her office represented a myriad of difficult questions and might even represent more difficult answers.

But there was an ED that needed attending-to, and excuses to be made, so she took a deep breath and opened her office door. "Hi," she said to Jane Smith, then closed the door behind her. "Erm, are you doing okay?"

Jane, who was sitting on sofa across from Helen's desk, reading a magazine, looked up and smiled. "Yeah, never better. Thanks for patching up my headwound."

"Lungs? BP?"

"I'm breathing, blood's pumping. I'm a quick healer."

"Good. Glad to hear it. Listen, I would _really_ like to chat with you. I mean _really. _In fact, I'd never forgive myself if I let you leave without following up, you know?"

"I know," Jane said, with a gentle smile.

"But I've got a madhouse of an ED down there, and we're short-handed."

Jane got to her feet. "I could help. Give me a set of scrubs and aim me somewhere – I've got experience."

"You're a medic?"

The woman nodded. "A doctor."

Helen opened her mouth to speak, and ended up only gaping at the blonde woman before her. Jane smiled.

"Erm… well, do you have credentials?" Helen managed to croak, tentatively.

Jane patted her pockets and produced a familiar-looking leather wallet, and held it out.

Helen took it, with a trembling hand. Now _she_ was the one short of breath, with the erratic heartbeat. She felt sure she had handled this very wallet before, and felt very sure that whatever was inside would toss a lump into her throat

She was not wrong. She glanced at Jane, who was smiling beatifically, as she opened the wallet. The card inside read, "You know I don't have credentials, but you know you can trust me. Let me help you, the way you helped me."

Helen handed the wallet back, and said, "There are scrubs in that cabinet, and a cap and mask. Meet you down there."

"Thanks… Dr. Sharpe, is it?"

"Call me Helen."

* * *

Jane Smith seemed to slide in to the ED as if it were her home… so well that almost no-one noticed her. Casey recognised her as one of the cave-in patients, but Helen assured him that she was fine, that they had actually attended medical school at Cambridge together – she had simply forgotten her old classmate in the bustle of the overcrowded ED.

"She offered to pitch in," Helen shrugged. She gestured to the chaos surrounding them. "Are you going to refuse help today?"

"If you say so!" he said surprisingly cheerfully, heading for the door as another patient was brought through on a gurney.

Jane was excellent on her feet, showed no signs of having been concussed or ill recently, and was attentive as well as compliant with other medics. She had ideas and initiative, knowledge, and an almost inhuman problem-solving prowess.

At the end of the second hour, the speed of the ED died down, and some of the staff from other parts of the hospital were able to return to their posts. It was clear that the department was beginning to revert to normal.

During the third hour, one of the collapse victims went into cardiac arrest, and Jane ran for him. She defibrillated and stabilised him. Casey took the liberty, at that point, of calling Dr. Reynolds, one of New York's finest heart surgeons, who turned up within a few minutes. Before anyone knew it, Reynolds was wheeling the bed out of the ED, headed for the OR.

Jane followed the bed, carrying the IV fluids, to the other side of the double doors. There, there were two people waiting: a nurse, ready to take the fluids off her hands, and Helen Sharpe.

Together they watched the gurney, the surgeon and the nurse disappear around the corner, and suddenly, they were alone in an empty hallway.

"Hi," said the blonde, pulling her mask off her face, revealing her bright, relieved smile.

"Hi. Thanks for your help."

"No problem. Been a while since I've done anything like that. Felt good."

Helen broke eye-contact. "So you…" she began, then lost her nerve. She gulped, and tried again. "You've got two hearts, then."

"I do."

"I've seen that before."

"I know. And just like before, I knew I could count on you not to freak out and tell everyone who would listen."

Helen gulped hard. _Just like before. _These words caused her to go prickly hot all over. "So, you're… a Time Lord? Time Lady? How does that work?"

Jane Smith continued to smile, now almost indulgently, "It seems to me that _Helen Sharpe_ wouldn't even know to ask a question like that."

Helen took three steps forward and found herself almost nose to nose with Jane. "Stop messing me about. Who are you?"

There was a long pause in which the two women studied each other… again. Helen admitted within herself, she had never felt this weirdly "drawn" to a woman before, and had never found any female quite so enigmatic. It was an odd feeling, even though she didn't sense anything sexual between the two of them… it was still unprecedented for her. This being standing before her was definitely singular. And there was a connection… of a sort. But of what sort?

Well, really, she already knew the answer.

The silence was somehow reverent now, and the moments seemed to pass in slow motion.

At last, the other woman broke the silence. In a whisper, Jane said, with all of the gravity of the moment, "Look in my eyes, Martha Jones, and you'll see it."

At hearing that name, the woman in the white coat took in a curt breath.

The woman known as Jane continued, "Actually, you've been seeing it all along, refusing to believe it. You know me – you know me well. We were close once, you and me. We were everything to each other. We once held each other's lives in our hands."

Helen did as asked, and searched the stranger's twinkling, penetrating brown eyes. "Oh my God."

The blonde smiled again. "Hello."

"Say it."

"Say what?"

"Tell me who you are. I need to actually _hear the words_."

"I'm the Doctor."

A pregnant pause, then, "You are, aren't you?"

"Couldn't be anyone else if I tried. And you're Martha Jones."

"I was. Am."

"You still are," the Doctor said, with a crinkly, radiant smile that, in spite of the _vast_ differences since last Martha Jones had seen the Doctor, seemed very familiar. She sighed. "Martha Jones in the flesh."

"Yeah, erm… speaking of flesh, you used to be taller," Martha whispered.

The Doctor laughed. "Indeed."

"How did _this _happen?" Martha asked, making a gesture indicating the Doctor's entire body.

"What, being smaller, daintier, with a lot less potential for facial hair?"

"Yeah!"

The Doctor shrugged. "It just did. Over a thousand years have passed, Martha. I've regenerated three times since last you saw me – twice more as a man, and now this."

"Is this your first time as…"

"As a woman? Yes it is!"

"Wow. I never… wow."

"History tells us that about seventy-five per cent of all Time Lord regenerations have been same-gender. The vast majority of us never change from one to another, though I wouldn't say it's exactly _rare,_ per se."

"Wow," Martha repeated.

"And guess what. The Master is one of us now too!"

"The Master is a woman?"

"Yes! Although I reckon _her _transformation was karmic, since _he _was such a misogynistic bastard back in the day."

"I thought he… she… he was dead."

"Long story. Time Lord resurrection, vengeance, radiation, a guy with a really big chin suddenly appearing in my console room… someday I'll tell you the whole thing. Anyway, sometime after that, our Master committed Mastercide and became Missy."

"Holy shit."

"Don't worry, the shock will pass. Did for me. Well, actually, I still forget sometimes, but then I find I can't lift a heavy box, and I think, _oh yeah._ And I've got to say, the Middle Ages are loads harder to navigate than they ever were before. Other than that, I rather like the change."

"I'm… having mixed feelings about it, honestly. Mostly because… well…"

"I get it."

"No, I mean, I'm supportive and all. It's just…"

That was when the double doors opened again, and Max Goodwin walked through them, in his light blue scrubs. The Medical Director stood with both feet apart and hands on hips.

"Hi," he said to his Deputy, annoyed. "Why didn't you come get me?"

"You know why," said the woman he knew as Helen Sharpe. "You needed to finish what you were doing. Did you? Finish, I mean?"

"I finished, yes," he told her. "And then I threw up everything I'd eaten for the past week, and now I'm here."

"Max, go home," she said, approaching him. She stroked his arm a couple of times. "You're looking green."

"No, we need to talk."

"No, we don't. You need to concentrate on _you_."

"Helen, there was a cave-in…"

"I know," she interrupted. "And we handled it."

At that point, the Doctor caught Max's eye. "Is this your friend from Cambridge?"

"Erm, yes," Martha said, clearing her throat. "Max Goodwin, this is Jane Smith. She and I go way, way back."

"Yes we do," said the Doctor, enthusiastically shaking Max's hand. "Way, way back! And sometimes further than that!"

"Well, thanks for your help, Dr. Smith," Max said affably,. "Casey told me you were invaluable in the crisis down there."

"Casey's no slouch himself," the Doctor chirped. "Me, I'm just glad to be part of the team!"

Max turned his attention back to his colleague. "As much as I appreciate the work that you, and Dr. Smith, have done here, next time, call me."

"No," Martha said.

"No?" he asked, incredulous.

"No. If you want me to be your Deputy, it means that I make decisions when you can't."

"Helen, your friend was of great help to us, but you took a big risk inviting her in," Max insisted.

"How? I know her. I know she's brilliant. I trust her, just like I trust you. More, in fact," Martha told him. "Besides, what would _you _have done?"

"I would have assessed the situation piece by piece, and I would have…"

"Tried to be a bloody hero," she interrupted. "You would have gone from bed to bed, person to person, trying to intervene with each one of them. Eventually you…"

"I would have solved the problem _our way,_" he insisted. "The New Amsterdam way."

"The Max Goodwin way. Which is to say, the throw-yourself-to-the-wolves way."

"Helen, you know what I'm saying here, I know you do," he said, lowering his voice instinctively, to an intimate level. "The liability of having an out-of-network doctor from a foreign country, no matter how skilled she is, could have been enormous if anything had gone wrong."

"Nothing was going to go wrong. Not with her."

He looked at the blonde. "No offense to you, Dr. Smith – you must understand the pickle this puts me in."

"I understand pickles," the Doctor responded. Without context, it would have sounded completely like she was discussing brined cucumbers.

"So what do you want to do? Suspend me?" Martha asked, hands on hips, whimsically defiant.

"No," Max responded, anything but whimsically. "I…"

"Reprimand me?"

"No! I don't want to see you get hurt. Or reprimanded from some other channel just because you were trying to _think outside the box._"

"Thinking outside the box, it's why you chose me. It's very me," she said. She glanced at the Doctor. "I learned from the best."

"From now on, let me take the brunt," he instructed her.

"No promises," she shot back. "I'm not your doctor anymore, but I am your friend, and your colleague, and we're in this together. I know you want to be here for everything that happens, but you can't do that if you're dead. You'd think as a doctor you'd understand that."

"I do, Helen, but…"

"No buts," she shot back. "Do you want me to be your Deputy or not?"

He sighed. "Do I have a choice?"

"Not really. But you could choose someone else, if you like."

"No," he whispered. "It has to be you."

"Then give me the lead I need to work. When you're in chemo, you need to let go. It's the only way you'll survive, Max, and you know it."

He looked at the Doctor, and put out his hand again. "Thank you again, Dr. Smith. Outstanding job. I'm sorry you're having to hear all of this, and I hope that you understand, that none of it is about you."

The Doctor shook his hand, and said, "No, I can see quite clearly what it's about."

"This isn't over," he said to his colleague, before going back through the door.

"Indeed it isn't," she replied, watching him go.

* * *

**You know what I'm gonna say now, right? Leave a review, tell me your thoughts! I love, love, love hearing from you!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Well, you all liked the idea of the Doctor weighing in on the Helen/Martha - Max vibe. So, here we go - I think you'll find it juicy, even if the Doctor herself doesn't actually say much. ;-)**

**The bulk of the chapter is two friends catching up... and it's also kinda juicy, but I'm predicting a mixed reaction, for various reasons. Looking forward to knowing what you think! Sink your teeth in, and enjoy!**

* * *

THREE

Max had come in, and done his Max Thing, and now he was gone, and there was silence in the hallway. The two women were leaning on opposite walls, facing each other, in the wake of his departure.

"So," the still scrub-clad Doctor said, breaking the silence. "How long have the two of you been…"

"Been…?"

"You know."

Martha sighed. "We're not a couple. He's married, and I have a boyfriend… who is not him."

"Oh. Sorry. Didn't mean to pry. You two just have a…"

"A vibe. I know," Martha finished. "Can't escape _the vibe._"

"Heard it before, then."

"Yeah," Martha whispered.

There was another pause, and the Doctor added, "Well, again I'm sorry for prying."

"It's all right. Pry all you like," Martha said, wearily, with a smile.

"Okay then. For whatever it's worth, he's clearly stubborn as an ox, but I like him."

Martha chuckled a bit bitterly. "Of course you do."

"Of course I do? What makes you say that?"

Martha looked at the Doctor meaningfully, as though she had daggers in her eyes. She smiled mirthlessly. "Clearly…" Martha said, then sighed, reluctant to admit what she was about to admit. "Clearly, something is pulling me toward Max. If you see it, and my boyfriend sees it, and the crazy lady who thinks she's psychic saw it…"

"You don't see it?"

"I see it," Martha confessed. "I'm not an idiot, I know there's something there. As you know_ well_ know, I've been in this situation before. I also know that it's not just from my end. I know when a man fancies me, and when he doesn't… another thing I learned from… the best."

"Sorry," the Doctor said. Force of habit, she supposed.

"I've had to come to terms with _the vibe_, and recognising its truth. I've also had to come to terms with the fact that I'm drawn to Max because…" Martha sighed heavily.

"Because?" the Doctor said, when the silence grew longer than appropriate.

"Because he reminds me of you."

"Oh. Oh!"

"Back then."

"Oh, I see!" the Doctor breathed, looking at the door through which Max had disappeared.

"I reckon that's why you like him, even though he's stubborn as an ox, and is behaving like a total prat_._ He must remind you of you, too."

"I guess, maybe, on some level… in some ways…" the Doctor said, tentatively.

"He's got a wicked ego. And an even more wicked hero complex – he's got to save everyone, and he's got to do it _his way_, as only he can."

"Yep. Sounds like me," the Doctor agreed, softly, reluctantly.

"He's tortured with a painful past, and he's tragically flawed. Sometimes I think he has zero self-awareness. And he's so clever, it hurts sometimes." Martha was now staring at the slick hospital hallway floor while leaning against the wall, a she contemplated, and spoke. "He's _amazing_ at, as they say, non-routine problem-solving. He uses mundane resources like no-one I've ever seen – well, not no-one, because there's you. And… in spite of myself, I have this _ridiculous_, visceral faith in him. He will fix everything. The Great Max will swoop in at the end of the day, and save everyone… just like you. Remember New New York, and the traffic jam? I remember telling my kidnappers that you'd save us in the end, and they were sceptical because they hadn't seen the things you could do… Max is like that too, only he doesn't do it with time-travel, and technology, and speeding through space. He does it on a micro scale, with bureaucracy and logic and loopholes, and pure _love_."

"Wow, Martha."

"Max could save the world if he didn't have the bloody cancer," Martha chuckled at this, and was mostly joking.

"As I recall, _you_ are the one who saved the world," the Doctor reminded her.

"I want to be at his side, but I also want sometimes to have nothing more to do with him. I want to save him, and I also kind of want to kill him."

Martha said these words mechanically, still staring at the floor, and the Doctor could see her remembering…

"The only thing missing is the hair and the suit," Martha continued, again, chuckling at this. "He's tall, boyishly handsome, diabolically charming…"

"Yeah, sometimes I miss those days," the Doctor sighed.

"He just wears blue scrubs instead of pinstripes."

"He wears them well."

"Sorry," Martha said, sort of coming-to. "I didn't mean to impugn who you are now. I have to say, seeing you like this is very freeing."

The Doctor smiled. "I'm glad to hear it. And _being _like this can be very freeing. And speaking of free… who the hell is Helen Sharpe?"

"Helen is my middle name, Sharpe is my grandmother's maiden name," Martha shrugged. "The rest is quite a long story."

The Doctor smiled. "I've got time... as you know. How late do you have to be here?"

"Until at least six."

"Want to meet me for a drink later? We can catch up.

"Whoa, that's… a lot of catching up," Martha said, with wide eyes.

* * *

Wearing jeans and a lightweight white sweater, Martha walked into a bar, about four blocks from the hospital, at half-past seven. At the bar, she spied a blonde woman in a purple striped shirt, sipping a Coke. This time, her braces were up over her shoulders, and a long tan coat hung from the back of the barstool.

Martha slid into the seat beside her, and said, "Still with the hero coat?"

"Can't seem to kick the habit," said the Doctor.

Martha ordered a glass of wine, and then asked, "So what have you been up to?"

"No, you first," the Doctor protested. "What's with the new identity? Me, I can regenerate. What's your excuse?"

"The only thing that's changed is my name," Martha shrugged. "I'm still the same person on the inside."

"Really? Because the last time I saw you, you were married, fighting aliens, and living in Britain. Now, you have _a boyfriend_, are practising medicine again… in New York. And I've looked into it: Helen Sharpe is quite the media figure."

Martha sighed. "Well, Mickey and I split up after two years – I wasn't ready to have a baby yet, and he was badgering me… it caused this huge rift between us. Which was weird, considering our lifestyle at the time. And it's ironic when I look back on it now, since... anyway, I didn't want to get pregnant, and I didn't like being made to feel guilty for it, and I guess I became a cold fish, and he met someone else."

"What? Mickey? That's odd. He's so loyal."

Martha nodded, and took a sip of her wine. "You're not wrong. Which is why I didn't really blame him in the end… at some point, I closed the baby-having conversation altogether and became an impenetrable wall of stubborn. I started to pull further and further away from him, and weirdly, he wanted a wife, not a flat-mate," she said, the last bit with a bitter bit of sarcasm.

"Men have a lot of nerve," the Doctor said with a familiar smirk.

"Right? So, he found someone who _was _ready, at that time, to have kids. I would have preferred that they wait to conceive _after _our marriage was over, but you can't have everything, eh?"

"Oh, Martha…"

"It's all right. I heard from him at Christmas. They have three kids, and are expecting twins. He's doing computer stuff mostly, and doing some freelance alien work once in a while if he's needed somewhere. He sounds ludicrously happy, so I think it all worked out for the best, you know?"

"Good attitude, that. So, divorce… and what did _you_ do next?"

"Me, I went back to UNIT. Reckoned I couldn't live without the aliens, but also wanted to be a doctor again, you know? So I resumed my Chief Medical Officer role. And then, Colonel Mace got cancer."

"Oh, I heard about that," the Doctor said, wincing.

"He'd contracted it from exposure to these radioactive waves brought to Earth by the Zurufans."

"Aw," the Doctor sighed. "They mean well, but yeah… their sun particles are deadly in some galaxies. I don't know how many times I've told them to quit touristing about willy-nilly, until there's a prophylactic found… they don't listen."

"Well, the alien origin of it meant that Mace couldn't just go to hospital and get treated, so I had to step up. My specialisation had been internal medicines, but with him ill, I had no choice but to become an oncologist. I did my research, used what instruments we had, and designed a course of treatment for him – chemo, radiation, the works. In the end…"

"I know," the Doctor said, squeezing her hand. "His secretary left me a message when he died."

"What I did for him did not work," Martha sighed. "It might have, if the cancer had been Earth-based, but… what he needed, honestly, was _you_. But that didn't occur to me until it was clearly too late. And during that time, you were exceptionally difficult to get hold of - at least that's what I'd heard through the grape vine at UNIT."

"Was that when Kate Lethbridge-Stewart took over?"

"Yes," Martha said. "It was also right about the time I got sent to Siberia to treat some miners who had been attacked by a cell of burrowing Geadlicks."

"Ohhhh," the Doctor said, drawing out the syllable. "They pegged you as a time-traveller, didn't they?"

"Yeah, it was weird," Martha told her friend. "It was my lymphocytes. I'd known that my stint with you had given me these souped-up cells… I'd found out while working with Captain Jack and the gang. But it had never occurred to me that it might become a problem, or something that aliens might zero-in on."

"They keep pegging me, as well. Every now and then, they chase me down again, and try to recruit me."

"Well, I can't just jump in my TARDIS and get away from them – they hounded me. Kept saying they needed someone with my 'abilities' to head up their lesser-species relations division or something, and wouldn't leave me alone. Kate was researching their M.O., and realised at some point that they would never take 'no' for an answer, and would, in fact, kill me if I kept on refusing."

"So you moved to New York?"

"Well first, I tried to become invisible to them. My newfound experience with cancer gave me a unique insight into how abnormal cells behave. I designed a course of treatment for myself, and flushed my blood of the mutated lymphocytes. I was mightily ill for a while, but it needed doing. It wasn't quite as bad as chemo, but it makes me sympathise with my patients a lot better. After I did that, I thought I was home free, but they found me again through bureaucratic channels."

"What?" the Doctor asked, laughing.

Martha nodded. "I swear to you, they worked out which car was mine, and followed me out to Devon to visit my gran. I was on the grid, so they tracked me down."

"Oh no!"

"That's when I got really scared. Kate and I realised that the only way to shake them off was for me to move, change jobs, and change my name. Kate used her UNIT clout to contact the universities where I'd earned my degrees, and had new official documents drawn up, with my new name on them. That way, I could find work somewhere else, as Helen Sharpe."

"Wow. And the Geadlicks haven't found you? Even as Dr. Helen, doing the talk show circuit?"

Martha shook her head. "They haven't found me. And I haven't told anyone my real name because I don't want there to be a trail leading to me at all… especially through anyone else."

"So not even Max knows?"

"Nope."

"And your boyfriend doesn't know?"

"No. And sometimes I think he'd really like to hear the story of my life, because he's an oncologist, too, and he does this alternative treatment thing… I think he'd find my lymphocyte story quite interesting. But I can't tell him."

"Yeah, best not. But what about your family?"

"Oh, they know exactly where I am," said Martha. "Kate keeps them under intermittent surveillance just to make sure they're not being watched by the Geadlicks, and she thinks its best if we meet up in neither New York nor London. So, I've done holidays with my dad and stepmum in Hilton Head South Carolina, been to Disney world with Leo and his kids..."

"That's a relief to hear," the Doctor said. "It's not like you're in witness protection."

"Not really. Just can't use my real name, and can't go home for another decade or two. But that's about it. It's not so bad." Martha then took a long pull off her wine, and the Doctor off her soda. The two of them sat in contemplative silence for a few minutes, before Martha finally asked, "And you? Dare I ask what you've been up to this past… millennium?"

"Oh, you know, same ol', same ol'," she replied. "Taking down interplanetary bullies, saving planets, meeting great historical figures."

"How _mundane_," Martha joked, and they both laughed.

"The last time I saw you and Mickey, I'd decided to visit because I knew I was dying," she said. "I'd never be able to look you in the eye again, and have you completely recognize me. You and Mickey, Captain Jack, Sarah Jane... it made me sad that from then on, I'd have to _explain _who I was."

"Like today?"

"Exactly."

"Thanks for taking out that Sontaran, by the way. Last time I saw you, I mean."

"No problem. Amazing what you can do with a ball-peen hammer and a bit of upper-body strength. Anyway, I regenerated shortly thereafter, and lived in that body for about seven hundred years."

"Wow."

"I was young-looking. I wore a bowtie and a cheeky grin, and… at one point, met up with a couple of my past selves, and stopped Kate Lethbridge-Stewart from blowing up London. Weird, eh?"

"How the hell…"

"Zygons."

"Oh yeah – heard about that. I had just settled in here, when that happened."

"Bowtie guy travelled for a time with someone called Amy."

"Attractive and feisty?" Martha asked, chuckling.

"Of course," the Doctor shrugged. "_That _part of me hadn't died."

"Though, it might interest you to know that Amy's husband and daughter were also in the mix."

"Really? That's cool!"

"Cool… and pretty convoluted, actually. Speaking of which, I've been married twice since last you saw me, and I had a Scottish accent for a while. And the eyebrows to match."

Martha laughed out loud. "Have you been a quirky dresser the whole time?"

"Oh, that's been all my life," the Doctor said. "The Scottish Eyebrows pretended not to care about such nonsense. He did, though. A man doesn't own that many slightly-different black hoodies if he isn't trying to affect some sort of image."

"And you mentioned historical figures," Martha said. "Any that can match Shakespeare?"

"Well…" she cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Speaking of Shakespeare, and getting married... and Zygons, I did finally find out why Queen Elizabeth the First wanted me dead."

"Speaking of... getting married? The queen... wait, you didn't."

"I didn't have a choice!"

"Really? Married? Ceremony, consummation, the whole nine yards?"

"Not necessarily in that order, but... yes."

"And... was she a Zygon?"

"No. Well, sort of. Okay, yeah, sometimes. Don't judge me," the Doctor said with one pointed index finger, and a nervous sip from her Coke.

"Whoa," Martha said, laughing

"And now to quickly change the subject, I also met Queen Elizabeth the tenth."

"No!"

"Yes! She's brilliant. Quite the dark little gumshoe she is!"

"That's… amazing."

"I worked a bit with Churchill and some Daleks, though it wasn't the first time we'd met. Vincent Van Gogh, he cried a lot, and hugged a curator at Musée d'Orsay. And there was Marilyn Monroe… oh, come to think of it, got married _three _times!"

Martha laughed out loud again. "Oh my God!"

"Richard Nixon, Adolf Hitler, Robin Hood…"

"Robin Hood is fictional, though."

"That's just what he wants you to think."

"Excuse me?"

"Let's see… Santa Claus…"

"Okay, now you're just messing with me."

"King James the first, Rosa Parks…"

"Rosa," Martha mused. "Would _love_ to meet her."

The Doctor smiled. "Yeah, my friends were pretty taken with her. Though not with the time and place itself. Can't say I was a fan, either."

"Really? What about just walking about like you own the place?" Martha smirked.

"It was bad advice to you in London in 1599," the Doctor said, quite seriously. "It would have been _dangerous_ advice to Ryan and Yaz in Alabama in 1955."

"Oh… I see."

"Besides, that cocksure swagger doesn't work as well as it used to. I've had to adapt," the Doctor said, quietly, now staring into her beverage, and pushing the ice around with the thin straw.

Martha watched her, and knew her friend well enough to see the avoidance in her mannerisms.

"Doctor, what's wrong?" Martha asked.

The Doctor sighed. "Well… speaking of _having to adapt,_ Martha, there's a reason I asked you to have a drink with me. I mean, I wanted to catch up, sure, but… I need your help."

Martha nodded. "Okay. I can't go anywhere in the TARDIS, otherwise the Geadlicks will be able to track me again."

"No, I get that. What I need from you is... well, I didn't know who else I could ask."

"Just tell me what you need."

* * *

**Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? All of the above?**

**Leave a review, and let me know! Thanks so much for giving this bizarre little fic an audience!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Two reviewers mentioned the "walk around like you own the place" advice that Ten gave to Martha in Shakespearean London, and how it was really a glib thing for a white man (who really ought to be more responsible) to say to a black woman who is out of her element, out of her time. (For what it's worth, I really feel like Thirteen should have briefed Ryan and Yaz a lot more, concerning the do's and don'ts of 1955 Montgomery. Not that she would want, in any way, to remind them of "their place," but to keep them safe, there's an etiquette. Once they know the score, Ryan and Yaz are free to do as they choose with the Doctor's advice.)**

**Anyway, under that heading, the last two chapters have necessitated some discussion of the Doctor's metamorphosis into the smaller, thinner, oft-underestimated Thirteen. Mentions of her personal adjustments, both good and bad, have been made, including not being able to just walk around like she owns the place, and being sometimes reminded of her reduced physical strength. It's fun to write, it's fun to read (I hope), and it's fun to think about. But it's all going somewhere, this gender-adjustment thing... it's not just two friends shooting the breeze.**

* * *

**Okay, here we go with the actual "adventure" of the story! If you'll recall, the Doctor told Martha she needed her help with something... Enjoy!**

* * *

FOUR

The sun had long-since set on New York City, and two women stopped in the middle of a sidewalk, about two-and-a-half long city blocks from New Amsterdam.

"This is the place," said the Doctor, looking up at the crumbling structure to their right. This was the six-story building that had partially caved in, and had led her to New Amsterdam's ED.

It already had a chain link fence around it, and warning signs discouraging passers-by from getting close.

"Doctor, this looks _incredibly_ unstable," Martha pointed out, concerned.

"I don't care," the Doctor replied. "My friend is in there. With a dangerous creature that has already begun climbing out of its cocoon."

"How long has it been here?" Martha wondered, still staring up at the precarious ten-story building.

"It incubates for fifty years or so," said the Doctor. "This building was built around it, as part of the pupating process."

"So, _the building_ is part of its cocoon?"

"Yeah."

"That's mental."

"You're not wrong," the Doctor said. "For a while, it was an office building, but the creature would have done everything in its power to discourage that, even though it's sleeping. It's an adaptation. Again, all part of the pupating process."

"What kinds of things could it do to discourage the building being used?"

"Make it so hot that even air conditioning units couldn't cut through it," the Doctor said, shrugging. "Create odors. Interfere with the wiring. Things like that."

"All while it's asleep? That's amazing."

The Doctor nodded. "But then, in the last few months, it's known that it was going to emerge soon, and it would want people around, as snacks for the fully-grown creature, once the metamorphosis is complete, so it lowered the temperature, and made a safe, comfy home for squatters. Well, safe apart from the fact that some of them were bound to be eaten."

"So how did your friend get trapped in there?"

"There's a civilization in a neighbouring galaxy that has been keeping track of the Marifallon – that's the name of the species – and its activities throughout the universe, as best they can. Given how destructive it can be when one of the larvae decides to pupate somewhere inconvenient, really _someone _needs to keep track of them. Anyway, they realised that emergence was imminent, and called me to deal with it."

"Of course they did," Martha said with a smile.

"So the four of us went in there to see what could be done about preventing the metamorphosis in a non-violent way. Yasmin went off in her own direction, because that's what you lot always do, even when I tell you not to, and she got pulled in by some bait. Probably the mirage of a struggling child or something. Then the building collapsed. My other two friends ran for it and made it out, but I got stuck, as you know, in some of the rubble. I used to be able to run faster... had longer legs. Anyway, none of us has heard from Yaz. There will be something like a perception filter around her and any others trapped with her, that kept the first responders from finding them."

Martha's face scrunched into sadness. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, be helpful!" the Doctor said, cheerfully.

"I plan to be. How many others do you think are in there with her?"

"Based on the adult Marifallon's size and average food consumption, I would say there are between two and four others trapped with Yaz. We're going to get them out, and you and I can deal with their injuries and whatnot."

Martha completely understood this, and why the Doctor and her friends couldn't just rush Yaz and the others into New Amsterdam, after possible alien contact, and injuries that might defy what Earth-based doctors could conceive of. There was a good chance the victims would be covered in a residue that her colleagues would want to identify, but would not be able to, which would cause quarantine, inquiries that would go nowhere, and resources drained from the hospital, that it could not afford, not to mention a panic, if anyone realised it was alien. Martha had agreed, it would be easier just to have a couple of alien-savvy medics on-scene.

"I could call the NYC UNIT office, but without Kate Stewart about, I don't think I trust them," the Doctor had told Martha. "Especially since I look like this, you know?"

"I get it," Martha had said, knowing all too well the biases that could arise in a close-quartered militaristic situation.

"They'd probably try to kill the Marifallon, and I want to avoid that, if I can."

And so, Martha had brought a large military-grade duffel, containing myriad medical devices and supplies, everything the Doctor had recommended, and then some.

The Doctor looked away then, and fixed her eyes on two people crossing the street – a tall, young black man, and a middle-aged white man, of medium height. "There they are," she said, with her brilliant smile.

When they were within earshot, the shorter of the two men shouted out, in a thick cockney, "Great to see you, Doc! Thought we might've lost you forever!"

"Nah, you'll never lose me!" she shouted back.

The two guys reached the kerb, and the taller man lifted the Doctor off her feet in a relieved hug, and she laughed. This action reminded Martha distinctly of incidents when the Doctor, in the boisterous, pin-striped-wearing incarnation, had lifted _her _off her feet, in a relieved hug just like this. She reckoned it would be easy to see this as proof of things having changed – the Doctor was now smaller, lighter, blonder, female, and companions could lift _her, _instead of the other way round. But rather, she saw it as more evidence that the Doctor was the same person as ever. Relationships with companions were caring and intense, all about danger, life, reassurance, and joy.

It made her feel drawn to the Doctor again, and to her friends.

When the Doctor was back on her feet, she said, "Martha Jones, a.k.a Helen Sharpe, meet Graham O'Brien, and his grandson, Ryan Sinclair."

"_Step_-grandson," Ryan corrected.

Graham reached out to shake the hand of the woman to whom he had just been introduced, and as he did so, he asked, "Sorry, I'm not clear – what do I call you?"

"Call me Martha," she said. "But if anyone else asks, I'm Helen."

"Erm… why?" Ryan asked, now shaking her hand as well.

"Call it Alien Witness Protection," she said, borrowing a bit from something the Doctor had said while they were having drinks.

"Seriously?" asked the young man, with a delighted, child-like look on his face.

"For lack of a better description, yes," Martha replied.

"Cool!" Ryan commented emphatically.

"Martha and I travelled together for a bit, a long, long time ago," said the Doctor. "After she left, she'd done such a phenomenal job of saving the planet, I recommended her to UNIT. She became the target of an alien threat, and had to move countries and change her identity."

"_Saving the planet?_" Ryan asked. "D'you mean _this _one?"

Martha laughed at the honesty of his reactions. She found it endearing, though wondered if he was perhaps younger than he looked.

"How'd you do that, love?" Graham asked. Martha found him charming, as well.

"Can we get into that later?" the Doctor asked. "Yaz is still in there, and the emergence is happening any time now. The initial movement has already begun – it's what caused the collapse, so we've got to move quickly. As if our friend's life depended upon it."

"Right," said Graham. "Where do we go?"

"Follow me, gang," said the Doctor. "Or, _allons-y_, if you like, Martha."

Martha chuckled, and followed her old friend into a dark passage between the chain link and a neighbouring building. It was about eighteen inches wide, and the Doctor had no trouble walking at a normal pace through it, though her coat brushed against the brick and metal on either side. Martha wouldn't have had a hard time either, were it not for her bulky duffel. Ryan and Graham both had to turn sideways, and both grumbled a bit.

When they were on the side of the building that was opposite to the street, the Doctor located a padlocked gate. She pulled the sonic screwdriver from her pocket and it lit up and buzzed, and the lock popped open.

Martha laughed delightedly. "There's a sound I haven't heard in years! Didn't realise I missed it until now!"

"Glad I could help," the Doctor said, opening the gate, and ushering her friends through it. She did not lock it behind her, but was careful to shut it, so as not to attract attention, should anyone be paying slight attention.

They looked about and found a few stray cinderblocks which Ryan stacked, and a few stray boards which the Doctor and Graham laid across the blocks, to form a makeshift table. Martha then pulled her instruments from the rucksacks, including a roll of white paper to cover the table, and began laying out the most likely needed implements.

"It seems like if a construction crews has already been here to put up the fence, there might be a demolition date already set," Ryan speculated.

"You're probably right," the Doctor said. "Another fun deadline to push, since no-one knows there's anything alive in there."

"And if they've been here already…" he said, beginning to look about in the dark. He pulled his phone from his pocket, and turned on the flashlight, casting it about. "There! I went on a call with my instructor to a construction site, and they had one of these, for locking up their smaller equipment at night. It's weighted with cement at the bottom so it can't be easily stolen."

He had spotted a large metal box between the fence and the unstable structure.

Graham leaned to his left and whispered proudly to Martha, "He's training to be an electrical engineer. Clever, that one."

"Nice!" Martha replied.

"What sorts of tools do you think we'll need?" asked Graham of Ryan.

Ryan replied, "I'm just hoping for hard-hats."

"Good point," the Doctor remarked. She walked over and sonicked the box open, Ryan pulled out four white hard-hats, and each of them donned one. The Doctor also reached into the box and grabbed a hand-held, 500-watt soldering iron/welding gun.

"Whoa," Ryan said. "That thing is serious! Do you know how to use that?"

"Of course," she replied trying it out, bouncing it a bit in her right hand. "Though, I haven't handled one in a while... don't remember it being so heavy. Used to have thicker wrists. But, it could come in handy!" She then reached into the box and found a pair of wire cutters, snipped off the tool's power cord, and sonicked it.

"And now it's portable?" Martha asked.

"Yep!" the Doctor chirped, stuffing the device into the front of her waistband.

Then, began to debrief Ryan and Graham. _She _was going to go in first, and they were to follow her path, like when you follow someone's steps through deep snow. Yaz and the others were likely toward the centre of the building. They would have to look hard, because there was a perception-filter-like shroud over them, but the closer they got, the easier it would be to hear them call out, see colours of their clothing, etc. They had to move carefully, quietly, disturbing as little of the rubble as possible, because, obviously, it was incredibly unstable.

"You guys go, I'll be ready when you come down," Martha said. She noticed that Ryan's phone was still in his hand. She grabbed it from him, programmed in her number, and handed it back. "Just in case you need me. And Ryan? if you can, I'd appreciate updates every now and then, just so I know you lot aren't dead or captured by the Marifallon."

"Yes ma'am," he said to her earnestly, making her smile, and shake her head at the same time.

* * *

Over the next half-hour, two texts had come in from Ryan: "The Doctor's found a way in that doesn't look suicidal. Win." That was followed twenty minutes later by, "We're still okay. Claustrophobic. Slow going."

Then, at the forty-minute mark, Martha's phone went _plink-plink _again, and the text from Ryan read, "Haven't got to Yaz yet, but coming back down."

"Are you all okay?" she texted back.

"No one is hurt."

She sighed, and began to pace.

Ryan himself was the first to emerge from the building, about another forty minutes later, followed by Graham, then the Doctor.

"What's happened?" she asked them.

"We reached a point where we couldn't fit through anymore," Graham said to Martha.

"Correction," Ryan said. "You and I reached a point where we couldn't fit through anymore. The Doctor did fine."

"Oh," Martha said. "So now…"

"Now, it has to be you and me," the Doctor said to her. "I could've gone further, but the lads… they're too bulky."

Graham exaggeratedly sucked in his gut. "Oi, easy now. Working on it."

"No… both of you, your shoulders are too broad. You've got bigger arms, a bigger torso, a bigger waist, bigger feet, bigger everything," the Doctor said. "And Ryan's over six feet tall! Plus he's got dyspraxia! I've got to go in with Martha now."

Martha frowned at Ryan. "You went in there with dyspraxia? Are you kidding me?"

He waved away her comment. "Oh, save it, I'm fine. I do crazy stuff with the Doctor all the time."

"A person who can't ride a bike should not be trying delicately to crawl through a falling-down building," she scolded. "_Can _you even ride a bike?"

"Erm…" he said.

"Point is," interrupted Graham, saving face for his grandson. "Ryan and I can't get to Yaz, and someone's got to get to her, because the Doc can't do it alone. No-one should. So, Dr. Jones, you're up."

The Doctor looked at her and said, "I was able to stabilise things in a few places by soldering rebars across one another, but I can't _widen_ anything. That's too much to ask."

"I get it," Martha said. Absently, she handed the stethoscope she'd been wearing round her neck off to Graham. She picked up a roll of bandages and used it to tie off her hair, and stuff it inside her hard-hat, then used it to fasten the hard-hat to her head. She stuffed the rest of the bandaging in her pocket, then grabbed a tube of disinfecting ointment off the makeshift table and did the same. Then, she said, "Okay, Doctor. Point me in the right direction. Unless… do you need a breather?"

"No, I just want to get up there, and get Yaz and the others out," she replied. "I'll take a breather later."

"Okay, Doctor… doctors," Ryan said, exaggerating the 's'. "Good luck. Text if there's anything you need."

Martha patted his arm, and then followed the Doctor round to another side of the building. "This is nerve-wracking," Martha said. "Been a long time since I've done anything like this."

"You've got the heart of a champion, Martha Jones," the Doctor said.

"I've got the heart of a doctor," Martha replied. "I can't_ not_ do this, as long as there are people up there that need seeing-to."

"Otherwise you wouldn't?" the Doctor asked.

Martha chuckled. "No, we both know I would do it just because you asked."

"Good thing, too," the Doctor said. "Because I really need you."

"I guess if it were back in the old days, I'd have to do it alone, eh?"

"Yep, or we'd recruit. Or, I'd have to leave them up there, and wait for the Marifallon to emerge, and try to get to the hostages as soon as the building fell, hoping to catch them before they were eaten, and having to deal with much more severe injuries. I mean, I would've got it done, but it would have been messy, and even riskier," the Doctor replied, and it was clear that this had already occurred to her.

"Okay," Martha said, genuinely thinking about what her friend had said. Then, "Erm, Doctor, what if some of the hostages are men, or are bigger people?"

"Then we'll call for reinforcements. I wanted to avoid involving any others because of the danger of the Marifallon emerging, but if we have to, we can get a proper rescue crew in to open up the side of the building, and hope it gets done quickly, and without any of us getting arrested. And meanwhile, guide out the ones who will fit. But that was on my mind even when Ryan and Graham were with me… though it was moot, because they aren't even able to get _to_ the hostages."

"Okay. I trust you."

The Doctor stopped, and turned, taking Martha by the upper arms. The Doctor had done this numerous times to her, but never quite so gently. She was illustrating her very point, without realising it, with this one gesture. "But you and I, Martha, we can get at least that far! We can stabilise our way, we can fit through the tight spots, minimise the injuries. Two heads are better than one, and four hands are better than two. This is not something I could have done before, ever. None of my previous bodies would have done, and just this once, Ryan and Graham haven't got what it takes. I'm _so glad_ you're here."

* * *

**So... thoughts? ;-) Don't hesitate/forget to leave a review and let me know what they are!**


	5. Chapter 5

**This was so much fun to write! I love Iggy Frome! Enjoy!**

* * *

FIVE

Graham sat on a cinderblock, and held Martha's stethoscope in his hands contemplatively. He turned it over and over in his hands, and sighed.

"What're you planning on doing with that?" Ryan asked him.

"Nothing," he answered. "Just thinking of your gran. Actually, Martha reminds me a lot of her."

"Yeah, I can see that. But no, I mean… I was just wondering, what are _you_ planning on doing with _that?_"

"Oh. Nothing," Graham said. "Martha just… you know, handed it to me."

"But you and I, we're going to be bloody useless once they come back with the injured hostages," Ryan said. Then he scoffed. "We need smaller bodies to do the rescuing, and we need medics to do the patching up. There's four of us, and the two women _are _the medics. And that leaves you and me… where?"

"Well, sometimes, Ryan, all you can do is be aware of the situation, and pitch in where you can. And when you can't pitch in, you try not to make things worse."

"Just wish I knew how to help. I'm feeling benched."

"You'll know when the time comes, son," Graham said, patting Ryan on the shoulder.

"But suppose the Doctor gets injured in there, or Martha," said Ryan. "I mean, even if they make it back down, we'll need backup."

Graham was silent for a few moments, then he said, "You might be right. We might need more than just medics, though, we would need a full rescue crew."

"Damn it."

"But maybe we can just start with the medics bit, eh? Work from there, if need be? If the Doctor is injured, Martha can look after her… or vice versa. But who's going to look after the other hostages, if they're hurt, eh?"

"That's what I'm saying. Where did Martha say she works?"

"New Amsterdam," Graham said. "Ryan, I think this is how you can help!"

Ryan pulled out his phone, and discovered they were well within walking distance of the hospital. "I'm going to go get someone. Maybe they'll come just for Martha's sake, eh? Without calling in the cavalry and complicating things?"

"I think that's a good bet," Graham said. "Except, remember, her name is _Helen Sharpe_, as far as they're concerned."

"Okay, I'll remember. You stay here, just in case they need anything. I'm going to go find more help," Ryan said, throwing aside his hard-hat, and letting himself out of the fenced-in area.

* * *

"Goodwin," said Max into his phone.

"Hey Max. How's tricks?" Dr. Iggy Frome said, casually.

His casualness was totally fake, though, and Max Goodwin saw right through it. "What do you want, Iggy?"

"Casey Acosta called me. Said you were planning to run the ED tonight."

"Why would he do that?"

"He's concerned, like we all are."

"Seriously, I'm doing okay."

"So basically, we sent Dr. Bloom to rehab because she wasn't medically fit to do the job, and replaced her with… _you?_"

"Nice, Iggy. Very therapeutic of you."

"What a fantastic turn of events," Dr. Frome chuckled, sarcastically. Then, "So, is it true? Are you still at work? Doing possibly the most intense, stress-inducing task in the building, which is saying something?"

Max sighed, "I am."

"What the hell are you thinking? Are you crazy?"

"I'm_ thinking_ that I'm doing my job, and are you even allowed to ask that question? Isn't that, like, rule-number-one in the manual of psychiatry? _Don't just come out and ask people if they're crazy_?"

"How many times have you thrown up?"

"Iggy…"

"How many times have you had to sit down because of dizziness? While you're taking patients' vitals, who's taking yours?"

"Look, Ig…"

"Max, get your butt home. It's after one a.m., and you just had chemo today. Let me say that again: _chemotherapy! Less than ten hours ago!_ And you're in the ED trying to do graveyard? Do you know how close you're coming to… well, actually _being _in the ED, and then the actual graveyard?"

"Again, nice. Very sensitive. Isn't _don't make dark jokes about death at a patient's expense_ rule number two? Look, Bloom is still out, Candelario still has the flu, Helen put in over twelve hours today already, plus she's got her friend in town…"

"Yeah, it's too bad we live in such a small, one-horse village, and there are no other qualified physicians in our hospital network who could take your place. Wouldn't it be cool if we lived in, like, the biggest city in the world, where other doctors live and work?"

"_Don't be snarky_, rule number three."

"But my point is taken, isn't it? You're in _New York City_," Iggy said, making a spectacle of shouting the last three words. "Get the head nurse on shift to call Manhattan General and see if they can spare someone! Jeez, I thought you were good at thinking up this stuff!"

"Iggy, the nausea is…"

"Hey, I'm not your oncologist, so it ain't about the nausea," Frome told him. "I'm a shrink, so _this _is about your behavior! It's clearly obsessive, not to mention a bit delusional and borderline narcissistic, and frankly…"

"I'm not narcissistic! That's a low blow, Dr. Frome."

"Dr. Goodwin?" a voice said from his right. It was Marian, a nurse he had just met this evening, working reception. "There's a man here, says he needs to speak to someone in charge. He won't go away."

"It's all right, I'll talk to him. Iggy, are we done here?" Goodwin said.

"Not even close, Max! Don't hang up on me!" the psychiatrist shouted through the phone, as Max walked through to reception.

Max did not hang up on Iggy, but turned his attention to the young man standing in front of Marian's desk.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Goodwin, what can I do for you?" he asked the young man.

"Dr. Goodwin, my name's Ryan Sinclair, and I'm a friend of, erm, Helen's. Helen Sharpe, do you know her?"

"Yes, why?"

* * *

Iggy had heard some man claim that Helen Sharpe and a friend had gone to the site of a collapsed building to help out more injured squatters, on-scene. After Max began asking questions, he had claimed that these particular squatters were possibly injured, but the building had been stabilized where they were, so no rescue crews were needed, Helen and her friends were just doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, in their off-hours. Iggy couldn't see the man, of course, but he could tell a few things about him: he was young, he was British, and he was lying about something.

Then he had heard Max freak out slightly, and promise to come and help. After that, the indomitable-to-a-fault Medical Director had said, "Iggy, I've got to go," and had ended the call.

Max's phone rang again three minutes later. "What?"

"You're not going," Iggy said.

"The hell I'm not."

"That guy… you don't know him from Adam! He's lying to you!"

"About what?"

"I don't know, but I've worked with police interrogators to catch out liars, and if he were a suspect, he'd be charged _now._ Plus, we have no way of knowing at the moment whether he even knows Helen, as he says! Just because he speaks with an accent doesn't mean…"

"Okay, so, if you're right, and he's lying about something, then we need to figure out what about. Helen could be in danger."

"Jesus, Max! Look, if nothing else, who's going to run the ED?"

"Call Reynolds for me, would you? He's still in the building, I think," Max said, now throwing supplies into a tote. "Pretty sure he just finished up on a cardiac-arrest that came in this afternoon from that very same building."

"I'll call him, but why don't you let Reynolds go to the building, and you stay put? You're not physically up to being where you are, let alone on some cold, dirty, unstable, disaster site!"

"I'm going to the site."

"Look, Max, I know what this is about. I know your whole Superman complex is all about Helen – at least lately. It doesn't take a genius. It doesn't even take a psychiatrist, okay?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. She's my friend, she's in danger, I'm going to go help. Plain and simple."

"No, it's not plain and simple! You're acting like this because she dumped you!"

"She did not dump me!"

"She was your oncologist, and now she's not, because _she_ stepped back. But _you _didn't want her to. The reasons behind all that are, frankly, something that the two of you will need to address sooner rather than later, because if you and Helen get anymore vibey, _that _building will collapse… but that's neither here nor there."

"Vibey? Wha…"

"The point is, she walked away from you, and now you're rebelling and being totally insufferable and infantile, not doing _anything_ you're supposed to do, that _she _would want you to do, like a child who's acting out to get attention from a busy parent."

"Quit getting shrinky on me. You're reaching anyway."

"Fine. Then prove me wrong. Let Reynolds see to Helen, and you do what's best for you: go home."

"I can't do that."

"This would be an excellent opportunity to show me, and yourself, that you can make good decisions where Helen Sharpe is concerned."

"That's ridiculous. But, you know what, Iggy? If you're so concerned about me, then come with me, okay? But you can't talk me into standing still while my friend might be involved in something dangerous."

"Goddamn it!" Iggy shouted, knowing that Max had ended the call again.

"What's wrong?" Martin said, sitting up in bed beside him.

"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you," Iggy said, climbing out of bed. "I've got to go to the site of a collapsed abandoned building."

"What? Why?"

"Goodwin is imploding, and I can't let him obsess over Helen, and the nausea's just going to get worse, and that young British guy was definitely lying about something," Iggy responded, crossing the room toward the closet.

"Okay. Someday, you'll explain that."

"Yeah, it's just… Max," he said from inside. When he came back out into the bedroom, he was wearing the dress pants he'd worn to work, with the grey t-shirt he'd worn to bed. He had a pair of socks in his hand, and he sat down on the bench at the foot of the bed to put them on. "Sometimes I wish he could be a lot less… Max."

"You're lucky I happen to know what that means."

"It's fine - go back to sleep. I'm going to go save my boss, but I'll be back before morning, okay?"

* * *

"How'd it go?" Graham asked Ryan as he came through the unlatched gate. "I was sort of hoping you'd come back with a bunch of white-coats in-tow."

"Someone called Dr. Goodwin is coming, I think," said Ryan. "He got really wound-up when I mentioned Helen. Martha. Whatever."

"Well, I reckon that's a good thing," Graham said.

"But… I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm a nutter."

"How's that?"

"Either that or a criminal."

"Why?"

"I'm a terrible liar. Everyone can tell when I lie! Gran put the fear of God in me about lying, so now I get all nervous, and I sound like a broken machine."

"Why'd you have to lie?"

"Because, Dr. Goodwin wanted to get rescue crews involved! I had to dance about, and say that the people who are stuck are actually in a fairly stable spot, which is why Helen had decided to do it. I also didn't say she'd gone in… I just said she was at the site, and needed reinforcements."

"Not the biggest lie," Graham said. "It'll be okay."

"But still… it's sketchy. _Hi, I'm a strange black man with a funny accent, and I'm being cryptic about knowing your friend, who's a woman, and now I'm being all shifty about what's actually happening, and I'm asking you to come to a scary, dark place to, quote-unquote 'help,' on my word. Sound good?_"

Graham laughed. "Well, at the very least, he'll come just to see what's up, and possibly to save Helen from you."

"Fantastic."

"It all translates to: help is on the way, right?"

"What if he calls the police?"

"All the same, help is on the way."

"You know what the American police are like! I'm a foreign black dude!"

"You survived Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. You can survive New York City in 2019. Either way, you know you've done the right thing, son."

"I really, really hope so," said Ryan, with a heavy sigh.

* * *

**Ooh, what's next? Helen's worlds will collide? **

**Leave me a review, and make my day! Thanks so much for reading!**


	6. Chapter 6

**So, what's going on inside the very fragile building? **

**Disclaimer: I have never climbed through a crumbling building, have never worked in construction, and all of this comes from my imagination. Your kindness is appreciated. :-)**

* * *

SIX

The fit was very, very tight, in quite a few places.

Martha was reminded that though she was small, she was curvy, and she didn't have the sort of hips that could just slip easily through a hole made by a heating duct, as the Doctor did now. There were definitely places where they both had to reach through with one arm, manoeuvre their heads through without the hard-hats, then turn their shoulders so that they were as vertical as possible, and wiggle through incredibly carefully.

"This was where Ryan and Graham had to abandon the mission," the Doctor said, as Martha made her way through such a barrier, and she tried to help as much as possible.

"I can see that," Martha commented. "How did Ryan even fit in this space below?"

"Not happily nor comfortably," the Doctor replied. "Graham didn't even get _that _far."

And even when Martha was through, the two of them had to share a space in which it was difficult to breathe, impossible not to be pressed against one another…

… and at times, it was a right struggle simply not to panic.

When she had travelled with the Doctor, she had been in close quarters on occasion. Drifting in a cramped space pod toward the sun with Riley Vashtee came to mind, as well as spending the night in a broom cupboard in northern Mexico, while a local cell of survivors hid her from the Master's troops who were camped out upstairs. But even that had been nothing at all like this. This was mental, though only for a few minutes, she reminded herself, and she couldn't help but go back over the bizarre turn of events that had landed her here.

But she pressed on because she had "the heart of a champion," and that of a doctor, and she couldn't do anything but.

"Okay, from here on out, it's uncharted territory," the Doctor said, fitting her hard-hat back on, as Martha did the same. "I only got this far before with the boys, so the rest is going to be slower. I'll solder rebars and things, wherever I can, but otherwise, it's stepping lightly, and trial and error. Ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be."

The Doctor squeezed her hand, and struggling to do so, stood up in the tight space. Her upper-body was now occupying a very narrow, stony, area where the rockfall had formed a kind of chimney. She tried pushing on the rock, lightly, then harder. Eventually she reached up out of the area and grabbed a beam of wood beyond, and used her feet against the "chimney" to pull herself up. Martha followed.

* * *

Another hour passed this way, squeezing through, staving off claustrophobia, getting scrapes here and there, and the Doctor said, "We're getting close, I can feel it."

And that was when they heard a voice call out, "Who's there?"

The voice was feminine, and sounded absolutely harried.

The face of a brown-skinned woman with what looked like a bloodied t-shirt wrapped around her head, appeared at the top of a short rubble wall.

"Yaz!" the Doctor cried out. "You're all right!"

"Doctor! Oh my God… are you mad coming up here like that?"

"Well, yeah, a little. Are you really okay?"

"More or less, but it's been rough," Yaz replied. "Come on!"

She reached down, and helped the Doctor climb up the rubble wall, and after that, the Doctor disappeared. Yaz's face reappeared and said, "Hello!"

Martha replied, "Hello!"

"You too, up you come," Yaz said, holding out her hands.

"Yaz, who are your friends?" she heard an American voice ask.

"That's the Doctor," she replied. "She's the one I told you about – she can totally get us out."

"Don't count your chickens just yet," the Doctor said.

"But the Doctor's brought someone, and her I don't know."

"I'm, er, Helen Sharpe," Martha said. She reckoned she could probably trust Yaz with her real name, but didn't want the other hostages hearing it, just in case.

The Doctor added, "She used to travel with me. I recruited her because she's a doctor, too, and is seasoned at dealing with, you know…"

"Giant alien butterflies?" Yaz asked.

"Well, not specifically," the Doctor said. "But she's seen a lot worse, believe you me."

Martha did as the Doctor had done, grabbed onto Yaz's wrists and heaved herself upwards. And when she reached the top, she could see that it led to the inside of a lift shaft, and that Yaz and the others had been hiding out on top of a suspended lift. She looked up at the cable, and it did not seem damaged nor frayed at any point above, though Martha knew that its safety also depended upon parts of the cable they could not see. She reckoned that the survivors had had to find stable cover any way they could, and this had seemed the least-insane option, in the wake of the collapse.

In the shaft there were, in addition to Yaz, two women and one man. Although, the Doctor was already down on hands and knees examining him.

"He's gone," she said.

"We know," Yaz said. "That happened six hours ago."

"What was his name?" the Doctor asked.

"Louis," said one of the other women. "He was a good guy. Knew him for a few months… squatted together."

"What happened to him?" Martha wanted to know.

Yaz shrugged. "Crushed by a big piece of concrete, so we pulled him loose, he moaned a bit, Vivian here gave up some of her painkillers, and then he died a few hours later. None of us really knew what to do. None of us knows what killed him."

"Probably just internal injuries," the Doctor said, sadly. "But! The three of you are still alive, and that's brilliant!"

"Sort of," said one of the women, smirking sardonically. She was slumped against the wall, her yellow sweatshirt soaked in blood. She was pale, though she was speaking and responding to what was being said, so that was a good sign.

"This is Vivian," Yaz said, with worry in her voice.

Martha knelt by Vivian, and examined the wound. It was clear that her arm had been partially severed, but a tourniquet had been applied, and it was working pretty well. "What did this?"

"An air-conditioning unit, I think. I was able to pull it free when the rubble shifted, but…" Tears came to Vivian's eyes. "Thank God for Yaz."

"Did you put on the tourniquet?" Martha wondered.

"I did," Yaz said.

"Very nice job. I'm impressed."

"I'm a police officer," Yaz told her proudly. "Part of my training"

"Oh, of course," Martha said.

"Camille donated her bra," Yaz said with a smile.

Camille was the third woman, sitting in the corner, apparently uninjured. Martha looked more closely at the tourniquet, and realised it was indeed a robust black sports bra, wrapped and tied off.

"How's your pain?" asked Martha.

"I just took something for it…" Vivian said, trailing off.

"What did you take, and how much?"

"I took three of my Percocets," she said quietly.

"She won't tell me how she got them," Yaz said to Martha.

Yaz was a cop, it was natural for her to have asked. But Martha had learned from the best, and knew what they would say. "It doesn't matter how she got them. We don't care about any of that, okay?"

"Quite right," said the Doctor.

"The important thing is, they're keeping you comfortable, and possibly alive. Are you? Comfortable, I mean? Relatively speaking?"

"I'm doing okay," Vivian said. "I'm more scared than in pain."

"Have you got enough pills for the next few hours?" Martha asked her.

"I've got enough for few days. Used to have enough for a month… they're somewhere in the rubble."

Martha (and Yaz, of course) assumed from this assertion that she was the building's designated "dealer," but neither of them voiced that thought.

The Doctor addressed Yaz. "What about you? Your head?"

"Took a pretty good knock to the noggin," Yaz said. "Camille again. Lucky she was wearing a tank top under her shirt as well. She tied it for me, and it's at least keeping the blood out of my eyes."

The Doctor examined her eyes. "You've got mild concussion, but I think you'll be able to climb out of here with us. Camille, are you hurt at all?"

"Miraculously, no," said the woman in the corner. These were the first words she'd spoken since the Doctor and Martha had arrived.

Martha had set about unwinding the makeshift bandage on Yaz's head. She examined the cut, deemed it, as the Doctor had said, mild, took the ointment from her pocket and used it, then wrapped a proper bandage around her head.

"Okay, listen," the Doctor said to the group. "Vivian, I'm sorry – I don't think I'll be able to get you out of here without special equipment, even _with_ the painkillers. And if you don't get proper attention soon, you'll die. So, the four of us are going to go, but as soon as we're down, we will call in reinforcements."

"I thought you said you didn't want to do that," Martha whispered.

"Life at stake," the Doctor whispered back. "Change of plans."

"Are you going to be okay here?" Martha asked Vivian. "It could be a while."

"I guess so," she whimpered, clearly afraid to be left alone. Camille moved close to her, and squeezed her uninjured hand.

"I'm sorry, but you wouldn't survive even the climb out of the lift shaft," Martha told her.

"I understand. Listen... there are eight pills left in that bottle there," she said, pointing to an orange plastic receptacle sitting in the corner. "And I've got another fifteen or so in my pocket. Oxycodone, Dilaudid, Percocet… in some combinations."

"Wow," Martha commented. "Okay. Tell me which pocket, and I'll help you get them."

The Doctor and Camille ended up having to prop Vivian up into a mostly-standing position, in order for Martha to dig in her pockets. She came up with three plastic zipper bags with various pills.

"Vivian, your bad habit is coming in handy," Yaz said.

"Shush," the Doctor warned. "We're not judging."

Yaz clammed up, and nodded.

"Take them," Vivian said.

"Take what?" the Doctor asked.

"The pills. Just leave me the bottle, and take the rest. Just in case you guys get into a jam that… you know, you can't get out of."

No-one argued. Yaz pocketed Vivian's plastic bags.

Camille gave her a hug, and asked if she wanted company while she waited. Vivian declined, and told Camille to save herself while she could. Camille kissed her on the cheek, whimpered a bit as tears fell, then she stood up, and joined the Doctor, Martha, and Yaz at the opening of the shaft.

"All right, let's climb down, team," the Doctor said, then set about explaining to Yaz and Camille how they'd got up, and how they'd get down. "I've stabilised a few places where rebars cross, or there are steel beams leaning against other steel beams. It _should_ be fairly stable in most places, but nothing is guaranteed, but we're going to take it slowly, and one at a time."

"Erm, also, if you've got issues with claustrophobia, now would be a good time to think of a happy place," Martha said. "I have a few anti-panic techniques I can suggest if we get in there, and you start to get freaked out."

"But you've got to _communicate_, ladies," the Doctor said. "That is key. If something is wrong, tell us. Something's unstable, or you're hurt, or you're panicking, whatever – just say so. All of our lives may depend upon it, yeah?"

All of them nodded, and agreed.

The Doctor then said, "Okay, let's do this. I'll go first, and Mar- Helen, you take up the rear."

At that point, the Doctor took off her hard-hat and placed it on Yaz's head.

"No, no," Yaz said, taking it off again. "Let the civilians have them." She turned, and put it on Vivian, who was staying put for now, but who was still technically in danger of being hit in the head by something.

Martha agreed, and gave hers to Camille. She then used some bandages to further secure her hair, as the Doctor set about climbing out of the building.

Before she could get anywhere, the Doctor said, "And don't forget, you lot. The Marifallon is still in here somewhere. If it flexes again inside its cocoon…"

"We're screwed," Yaz said. "Got it."

With that, Camille bade goodbye to Vivian, who wished them all good luck, and she allowed the Doctor to begin talking her through the process of climbing out of the building.

When they were all out of sight, Martha could hear Vivian sobbing. Her eyes filled with tears as well, but she wiped them away, then scolded them into retreat. She couldn't afford that just now. None of them could.

* * *

**Been hearing crickets from you guys! I could use a review...**

**Thanks for reading! :-)**


	7. Chapter 7

**I think you'll enjoy this chapter. Two characters who wouldn't normally touch each other's lives find something in common, and hopefully one of our characters with a hero complex sees why he or she should stand down a bit... maybe?**

* * *

SEVEN

Ryan Sinclair and Graham O'Brien heard people approaching, an hour and a half after the Doctor and Martha had disappeared into the building.

"Okay, here we go," Graham muttered, standing up, anticipating meeting whoever it was coming toward them.

They heard two distinct male voices coming down the very narrow space between the chain link fence and the building next door, the alley through which both Ryan and Graham had had to struggle a bit, turned sideways.

"This is stupid, you should go home," one of the voices said.

A breathy, weaker voice said, "I wish people would stop telling me to go home."

"Oh. Well, you know what place you can go to, where no one will tell you to go home? Home!"

There was a pause, then the second voice groaned, "Oh, God."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You're going to be sick, aren't you?"

"No, no…"

But then Ryan and Graham could clearly hear one man retching in the dark, and something wet splashing on the dirt and broken pavement below.

"Okay. Are you done?" the first, stronger voice asked after a few beats.

"Yeah."

Then, they heard rummaging, as though one of them were going through a duffel or a rucksack. Then, they heard something else wet, splashing on the ground. This time, though, they could see the faint glow of street lights filtering through a stream of water being poured out of a large plastic bottle, and they saw one of the men kick dirt over the spot as well.

"Thanks," said the weaker voice. "Now help me."

"Hello?" Graham called out.

"Hello?" the stronger voice said. "Who's there?"

"Are you gents from the hospital?"

"Yes, who are you?"

"We're friends of Helen's."

"Okay, well, look, can you help me and my friend?"

"Are you alone? It's just the two of you?" Graham asked.

"Yeah."

"And Iggy," said the weaker voice.

"Iggy's coming? Okay, I guess it's just the two of us, and our friend Iggy."

"You didn't call the police or nothing?" Ryan asked, nervously.

"Why would we do that?" asked the stronger.

Graham and Ryan went through the gate and around to the narrow passage through which two men were now stumbling sideways, struggling to get to where they were. Now that they were closer, Ryan shone his mobile phone light in their direction, and they could see that the stronger voice belonged to a robust black man, who was carrying a duffel like the one Martha had brought. Ryan guessed him to be perhaps in his late thirties, but he looked quite world-weary.

"Hi, I'm Graham O'Brien, and this is my grandson, Ryan Sinclair," Graham said.

"I'm Floyd Reynolds. This is Max Goodwin," said the black man.

The man he'd called Max was in front of him. He would have been a robust-looking white man, if not for the fact that at the moment, he was clearly quite ill. He was hanging onto the chain link as though his life depended upon it, and his eyes looked dark and drawn. His pallor was much greyer than when Ryan had seen him before.

"Hello again, Dr. Goodwin," Ryan said to him.

"Hey," Max breathed.

"You all right, mate?" asked Graham, reaching forward to help Max.

"If you guys could help Max get through the alleyway, and give us a bit of light, it would make my life a lot easier," Floyd said.

Max leaned on Graham, Ryan's mobile made sure no-one tripped on anything, and the four of them reached the end of the passage, and went through the gate.

"Blimey, Max - do you mind if I call you Max?" Graham commented, depositing the stumbling doctor on the cinderblock where he'd been sitting before. "Doesn't look like you're much up for this."

Floyd said, "He's not. But he's stubborn as a mule, and he's got to make sure Helen is all right. You know what she'll say when she gets here, Max."

"She's not my oncologist anymore," Max reminded him. "I don't care what she says."

"Yeah right," Floyd muttered.

"Your oncologist?" asked Graham. "You've got cancer?"

"Max! Are you here?" a voice called out from far off. "Floyd?"

"Yeah, we're here," Floyd responded. "You've got to come down that narrow alley thing. There may be some vomit about halfway down, so watch your step."

"Is that… Iggy?" Ryan asked Floyd, quietly, helping him unload his duffel.

"Yeah," said Floyd, just as quietly. "He's the shrink. He's probably here to try and get Max to go home."

"Good," whispered Ryan, stealing a clandestine glance at Max. "He looks like he's going to drop dead at any moment. Can this _Iggy_ person make him go?"

"No," Floyd sighed. "Max only listens to one person, and she's in that building, there. And lately, he doesn't even listen to her."

* * *

"Are you in remission?" Graham asked Max, meanwhile.

"No," Max managed to say. "But you knew that, didn't you?"

"Sorry, it's none of my business, but it seems to me that if you've got cancer, and you're not in remission, then you should be… well, anywhere but here." Graham said this with his unassuming, affable smile. He was almost disarming as Max Goodwin himself.

"So I've been told. Graham, is it?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'm sorry to do this to you," Max said, smiling awkwardly. "But I think I'm going to hurl again."

"Let's get you somewhere out of the way, then," Graham said, calmly, standing up. He helped Max to his feet, and the two of them made their way to the corner of the chain link square, just in time for Max to retch for the second time in five minutes.

"How can this still be happening?" Max asked. "I haven't eaten anything in…"

"It's all right, mate," Graham said, patting his back. "One of the joys of cancer."

Max looked at him with a quick bit of wonder, then centered himself upon his abating nausea again.

Then, Graham waited while Max recovered, and helped him back to the cinderblock.

"There, now, wasn't that fun?" asked a fifth man, appearing seemingly from nowhere. This was a barrel-chested, fully-grey-bearded man, dressed in a stretched out old t-shirt, and some brown dress slacks. Obviously, this was the man who had called out to them a couple minutes ago. "I saw the whole thing, and you're telling me you're fine?"

"Clearly, I'm not fine," Max admitted. "But if I can help, I'm not going anywhere."

"You're going to help… how?"

"I just need some time to gather my strength. Then I can deal with injuries, or transports, or whatever comes out of there."

"Bullpuckey," Iggy spat. Then Graham caught his eye. "Sorry… hi. I'm Iggy Frome."

"Where are my manners? Iggy, Graham. Graham, Iggy," Max said, gesturing back and forth.

The two men shook hands, and Iggy asked, "Forgive me but… who are you?"

"I'm a friend of Helen Sharpe's," Graham said. "A couple of friends, and my grandson and I, we're all in town for a visit."

"So if you're a friend of Helen, you know all about this guy?" Iggy asked, gesturing toward Max. "You know the saga of Max and Helen?"

"No, can't say as I do," Graham replied, amiably.

"There is no _saga of Max and Helen,_" Max insisted.

"Oh, shut up, you," Iggy said. "You don't know anything about it."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, it's not a _long _story, but it's an intense one," Iggy told Graham. "Especially if you witnessed it. Helen figured out before anyone else that Max had cancer, because there's some… I don't know, _chemistry_ between them."

"No there isn't," Max protested. "She figured it out because she's a brilliant oncologist, Iggy."

Iggy ignored him. "The two of them kept it hushed for a while, until Max and his wife were…"

"You have a wife?" Graham asked him.

"Erm, yeah! That's why this whole business is so…" Max tried.

"Max and his wife were upstate at some remote site, and he had an incident, and his wife had to call the hospital, and Helen talked her through performing a _tracheotomy!_ He was airlifted to New Amsterdam, and Helen had no choice but to tell the rest of us what was going on."

By now, Ryan and Floyd had found their way over, and were listening to the story. Floyd, of course, was already well-versed.

Max looked around at everyone that seemed to be listening and judging. "Okay, look. Helen was treating me, of course, because she's the best… every possible best. And at some point, I asked her to be my Deputy Medical Director, because I knew I wouldn't be able to do everything I needed and wanted to do for the hospital," Max said, sitting up straight. "She agreed, but eventually she decided that being my Deputy _and_ my doctor was too much, so she took a step back, and now I'm being treated by Dr. Staunton. And this is what Iggy seems to think is some sort of _saga._"

"It's not just Iggy," Floyd muttered.

"Let's just say, Helen thought that her doctor/patient relationship with Max constituted a _conflict of interest,_ of sorts," Iggy said.

"Ah, I see," Graham said. And he did see.

Only via cues from Graham's reaction did Ryan see. But once he got it, he got it.

"Graham?" Max croaked. "Please?"

"Again? All right, mate, up you come."

Graham again led Max to a corner. As they moved away, Iggy said, "Has he told you that he had chemo _today?_"

"Good grief, Max," Graham said quietly, privately. "You're either daft as a slab of sheetrock, or tough as nails."

Max vomited again, and said, "I would settle for either one. But I am neither one." This time, Max turned his back to the chain link and leaned on it. He took a minute to catch his breath, then focused on Graham. "Doctor? Nurse? Paramedic?"

"Me? Bus driver. Retired now, though."

"You've got a doctorly way about you," Max said. "In this case, I mean that as a compliment. Excellent bedside manner, sir, really."

Graham smiled. "I learnt from the very best," he told Max, thinking, really, of various people in his life.

"You're handling me like a pro."

"That's because I've been where you are," Graham confessed.

"Ah. I should have known."

There was a silence, and then, "It's terrifying, isn't it?" Graham asked him. "Finding out you've got cancer."

"Oh, yes," Max said, barely able to keep in a sudden urge to sob.

"There's a _thing_ in your body, that you can't see, can't feel, but they tell you it's growing. They tell you it's going to kill you if you don't follow steps. It's like… well, like an alien's got you by the throat. For all the sense it made to me at the time, I might as well have been bodily invaded by something from another planet. You're a doctor, so you can look at the disease analytically. Demystify it, you know?"

"I suppose that's true. Does that make me lucky?" Max joked.

"Don't want to tell you how to feel, mate. But for me, it seemed completely bonkers. Here I was, feeling fine, just going about my life, yet the word _cancer _sounded to me like the death knell. People back in the Dark Ages when I was growing up didn't it survive like they do today. And I didn't want to die, but I didn't want to be weak, either. They told me I'd have to give up my job to do this treatment that might be worse than dying of the disease itself. I'd be bald and sickly and… well, you know. And Max, my job was all I had back then. I couldn't do it. I was a bus driver – it's all I had ever been. So do you know what I did?"

"What?"

"I kept driving. Driving and driving and driving, because… well, it was almost like I thought I could drive away from it. Outrun the cancer. If I stopped driving, it would catch up with me."

Max laughed bitterly. He recognized this insane logic.

Graham continued, "Once in a while, I could be arsed to actually show up to an appointment, but I wasn't doing what I needed to do. Doctors used to lecture me, plead with me… but I had to find my motivation, you know? I needed to find the thing that would _make_ me stop, and let them help me. If you've got a wife, then you've got that. I had never had a wife, never had kids… it was just me. I hadn't found my motivation yet."

Max knew that Graham hadn't meant it this way, but he felt chastised by this speech. For multiple reasons, some of which he couldn't even quite put his own finger on.

"What did it for you?" Max asked. He asked because he knew Graham wanted to tell him, and was going to, one way or the other. And because he genuinely wanted to know.

"Grace. Grace did it for me," Graham said. He said it softly, almost like a prayer. "She was an oncology nurse, met her the first day I turned up for chemo. Looking back, I think I loved her the moment I saw her – it was just one of those things, you know? It was just right. It felt like the thing I'd been waiting for all my life. And there it was: my motivation."

"That's… that's beautiful, Graham."

"It was. I went to each and every session after that, bang on time."

Max chuckled. "I just bet you did. When a man loves a woman…"

"Yeah, well," Graham said, a bit sheepish. "In my younger days, I'd definitely bought a few more drinks than I should, frequented the florist more than needed, daft things like that, in the name of seeing a woman I fancied more often. At first, I told myself that's what I was doing with Grace. I wanted her, so I'd take myself in, and get a bit of chemo, because why not? But then I realised…."

"You were also doing it _for_ her."

"Yes. I was doing what _she_ said to do. Because I trusted her, and because… yes, I wanted her to trust me, wanted her to love me. And then, even more miraculously, I realised that I was doing it because I wanted to live for her, to be alive long enough to tell her how I felt, and be at her side when it was all over."

"That's amazing," Max said, voice quavering ever so slightly. "But I can't help noticing, you're speaking about Grace in past tense."

"She died a few months ago," Graham whispered. "Had a bad fall. Now it's just me and Ryan. You've probably already guessed from the utter lack of family resemblance, Ryan is Grace's grandson, not mine. He won't fully acknowledge that we're family."

"He's young, he'll come around. But he clearly trusts you."

"I'm not sure."

"I am. I'm a good judge of… these things."

"Thanks for saying so. He's a good lad. I love him to pieces."

"Listen, that's a beautiful story. Do you mind if I share it?"

"I don't mind," Graham said. "But you have to understand it and internalise it before you can share it, okay? Because I'm a good judge of _these things_ as well."

Max chuckled again, and smiled at his new friend. "You're very smart, you know that?"

"I do," Graham said. "Now listen. In order to live, and in order to see more of Grace, I had to do what she told me to do, right?"

"Right."

"So, if it were _me_, undergoing chemo, sitting about here in the middle of the night, vomiting on a disaster site, what do you think Grace would tell me to do?"

Max looked up at the crumbling building, and stared at it, as though the answer could be found inside.

Maybe it could.

"She'd tell me to go home," he said, still staring.

"That's right. So, what would I do?"

"You'd go home."

"I would. I would do what she said, because she was clever, and beautiful, and knowledgeable, and I didn't want to disappoint her."

To no-one's surprise, Iggy, Floyd and Ryan had been listening, from a respectful distance.

Iggy stepped forward. "I'll see him home."

"No," Max said. "I'd like Graham to see me home… if he doesn't mind. I want to hear more about Grace."

"No problem at all," Graham said, standing up along with Max, taking him by the arm. "Ryan, see you in a while?"

"Yep, see you. Don't tell him about her singing. No need to go there, eh?"

Both Graham and Max laughed. "Go it," Graham said.

* * *

**Soooo... Graham and Max are two very different men with one very big thing they share! Any thoughts? Don't forget to share them with me... if you're reading, following, hearing from you would absolutely make my day!**

**Thank you for reading!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Second-to-last chapter, folks! Glad you liked Max and Graham... I agree, they _should_ meet again, but I don't think they will during this story! :-( Feel free to write a continuation of your own! A buddy comedy, perhaps!**

**Anyway, hold onto your hats, because everyone's getting back together now, and Yaz is a bit worse for wear...**

* * *

EIGHT

The Doctor, of course, was the first to put her feet on solid ground, and breathe a metaphorical sigh of relief. Though the landing on solid ground was hard and painful, and she had to hold her breath in order to keep from letting on that she'd been hurt.

There still remained a ten-foot climb down a surface of debris with sharp bits of metal sticking out, and another ten- foot drop to the ground, for Camille behind her, and then a much-more-badly-injured Yaz, then Martha. Their way _in_ had toppled about a half-hour ago, and they had been forced to readjust.

When that had happened, it had made a big, messy noise and attracted the attention of, apparently, three men who were currently waiting with bated breath for them to come down. She had recognised only Ryan's voice, but the other two were doctors from New Amsterdam, or so Martha said.

"Doctor, are you all right?" Ryan said as she touched down.

"I'm fine. We had to leave someone inside. We need a rescue crew," she said, breathlessly trying to stifle her pain. Then she turned back round to address Camille. "Come on, love, down you come. Put your foot on that rebar just to the left… yes, that's done it. Okay… oops, be careful not to cut yourself… yes, that's it. Good…"

Ryan ran off to make a call.

Soon enough, Camille, who was now sobbing, was hanging from the same bit of iron beam from which the Doctor had been hanging only minutes before.

"You're doing amazing, Camille, absolutely amazing," the Doctor said. "The last thing is, I'm going to need you to let go."

"I can't, I can't," Camille sobbed. "It's too far!"

She had started out the descent rather eerily quiet, and as the way down had proven tight, dangerous, and physically strenuous, she had slowly unraveled. She had been crying off and on for an hour, and the last leg had been the worst. Her emotions were inhibiting her ability to think straight, and tears were affecting her vision.

"You can!" the Doctor said. "See? I did it! I'm not hurt." This was a lie… she had definitely, at the very least, badly sprained her ankle.

"We will catch you, all right?" a man with a beard said.

"Who's that?" Camille asked, still hanging.

"My name's Iggy, and I'm… well, let's just say I can provide a soft landing."

He stood beneath her with his arms out.

"I'm less soft," said the other man whom she didn't know. "But I can help catch you."

"That's Floyd," Iggy said. "He's really strong, and super-nice. It's okay."

"No, I want the Doctor," Camille said, sniffling, calming just a bit.

"Okay," the Doctor said, getting between the two men, wishing she were a bit stronger, and uninjured. "I'm here. Count of three."

Floyd had noticed her limping, and braced her, which was appreciated.

Camille sobbed through the three-count, but she let go, and it was mostly Iggy who caught her, though it was the Doctor who said, "There now, that wasn't so bad!"

"Are you hurt?" Floyd whispered to the Doctor.

"It's probably just a sprain, but _she's_ in shock," the Doctor whispered back.

Iggy had heard. "I'm on it," he said, beginning to lead Camille away.

"I want the Doctor," Camille whimpered.

"I'm a doctor, I promise," said Iggy. "And I've dealt with a lot of patients in shock before."

"He has," Floyd assured her. "You're in excellent hands."

"I want _her,_" said Camille, reaching out for the Doctor.

"Camille, I'm going to help Yaz now, but I will be with you _so soon_, you won't even realise any time has passed. Talk to Iggy, and I'll there in a jif. Okay?" the Doctor said, squeezing her hand. "Be brave for me?"

Camille nodded, and crossed her arms over her chest, which Iggy interpreted as _don't touch me._ They walked away side-by-side, with Iggy speaking softly.

"My friend Yasmin is coming next," the Doctor told Floyd. "She had a knock to the head when the building collapsed, and on the way down, she got a nasty gash in her thigh."

"How nasty?" Floyd asked.

"She'll need stitches, at the very least. Mar- Helen dressed up the leg with some antiseptic, and some bandages she had in her pocket, but it wasn't enough. We also gave her some painkillers we got from one of the squatters we met inside, so it allowed her to keep going, but… There wasn't equipment or space enough to get her treated properly, and Helen nearly fell into a black hole trying to do it. But at least it's not an open gash anymore."

"That plays right into my wheelhouse," he said. "Can she make it back to New Amsterdam?"

"Don't know," the Doctor said. "She's a bit woozy. I don't know yet if it's from blood-loss or from pain, or trauma…"

That's when they heard shuffling, and saw the cuff of Yaz's jeans, and her trainer, come into focus.

"Careful, now," they heard Martha's voice say. "Hang on tight, Yasmin. You're not too steady on your pins, you know."

"I'm fine," Yaz said, but her voice sounded faraway, and blood was dripping from her shoe.

"You're going to be, but first we have to do this last bit without your losing consciousness. Doctor? Can you talk her down?"

The Doctor then tried to give her a step-by-step guide to the treacherous climb-down, as she had for Camille. But Yaz was considerably weaker at this point, and was not really listening. Every minute, she was less and less capable of listening. Martha shouted at her occasionally from above, when appropriate, but the fact was, she was losing consciousness with fifteen feet to go.

"Yaz? Yasmin, can you hear me?" the Doctor was saying. "In a moment, you're going to move to your left, and grab onto that beam, there, and you will have nothing left to support your legs. After that, you'll have to drop, and…"

And that's when Yasmin Khan finally blacked out.

She fell backward awkwardly, landing right on top of Floyd and the Doctor, who were unprepared and toppled onto their backs.

"You two okay?" Martha called from above.

"We're fine," the Doctor said, while Floyd helped her to her feet.

Floyd then picked up Yaz from the ground. Within a few seconds, he was gone around the corner with her. All that was left was for Martha to make the climb, and the drop.

She did it relatively easily, having watched others do it, and listened twice to the Doctor's guidance, though in no part of the universe would this have been considered easy.

When she was hanging from the beam, the Doctor said, "Want help? I may have broken my ankle doing that… and yours won't just heal itself."

"Okay," Martha said. "If you're sure."

"I can't catch you anymore, but I can break your fall," she said, standing underneath, with her arms out.

"Here goes nothing," Martha breathed, and then she let go.

Both wound up lying on the ground, but Martha's feet and ankles did not sustain any blunt trauma, and that's all they were after.

"How's your ankle?" Martha asked.

"I'm going to need to lean on you."

"You can _always_ do that."

* * *

When they arrived at the makeshift infirmary on-site, Yaz was laid out on a second cinderblock-and-wooden-plank table that Ryan and Iggy had thrown together.

The Doctor asked Ryan, "Is anyone coming?"

"They're going to try and get a crew together, and be here before dawn," Ryan sighed.

"Oh boy," the Doctor breathed. "Cutting it fine. I suppose it's my specialty."

Floyd was shooting the unconscious Yaz's leg with a local anaesthetic, getting ready to sew up the gash.

"Helen, it's good to see you," he said. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"I went through the duffel you brought, but I didn't find anything to keep her knocked out," he said. "Also, what painkillers did you give her?"

"Doesn't matter," she said. "First priority is getting her a transfusion."

"You're right," Floyd said, sighing.

"Erm, guys?" Iggy said, joining the group again, leaving Camille a few feet away, wrapped in the Doctor's coat, sitting on a cinderblock. "Who's Vivian?"

"Her friend who's still up there," the Doctor sighed.

"She's very concerned about Vivian," said Iggy. "She lost her arm?"

"Very nearly," Martha said.

"Helen, great to see you," Iggy said, bending down for a hug. "Well, if…"

And that was when the rumbling began.

"Oh, God. I don't think we have time for Vivian anymore," the Doctor said, voice trembling, looking up at the structure.

They all looked. The building seemed to be breathing… expanding out, then back in, out then back in. Each time there was movement, something else fell.

"Martha, lead on – the TARDIS is parked on 29th Street and Parke Ave. Someone carry Yaz like a sack of potatoes. Everyone else, run. Run as if your life depended upon it!"

"Who's Martha?" Floyd asked.

"Wait, what's happening?" Iggy wondered, watching the weird pulsing of the structure.

"It's emerging, isn't it?" Martha asked.

"Yes, and it won't eat Louis because he's already dead," the Doctor said.

"Who's Louis?" Floyd asked.

The Doctor ignored the question. "And I'm sorry but Vivian's probably already been consumed, but she won't be enough. The creature was counting on at least four of you as snacks… that means it's going to look for the nearest living things it can find. And it's been asleep for half a century – it's hungry. We've got to get out of here. Now!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Floyd shouted.

"Go!" the Doctor shouted, just as one enormous wing poked out of the rubble.

"Holy shit!" Iggy shouted.

Camille instinctively gravitated toward the Doctor and Martha, and the Doctor told her to run. "You too, Martha! Go!"

"You can't run, and I can't leave you!" Martha protested.

"Yes you can! You know I'll be fine! Go!"

Floyd hoisted Yaz onto his shoulder and followed Martha out the gate. But he soon found that with his bulk, carrying her through the alleyway between the chain link fence and the next building over, was going to be nigh on impossible to do quickly.

"Damn it," Martha spat, coming back through. "Give her to me."

Floyd deposited the top half of Yasmin's unconscious body in Martha's arms. She now had the Doctor's friend cradled by the underarms, with Yaz's head lolling against her chest.

"Are you okay to get her feet?" Floyd shouted to Camille amidst the deafening rumble of a building about to burst outwards.

Camille, crying again, looking terrified, nodded, and picked up Yaz's feet and she and Martha now hurried down the passage, with Floyd, Ryan, Iggy, and the Doctor coming up behind them.

When they reached the street, they turned right. Now, Floyd was able to take Yaz and run. Martha led on, and all of them fled.

A blood-curdling scream filled the air, from something otherworldly coming to life. A giant, butterfly-like creature launched itself into the air, and hovered for a few seconds.

Not many people were on the street, relatively speaking, as it was the middle of the night. But anyone who was there turned and gaped for a few moments, then ran.

Our heroes were no exception.

"What the hell is that?" Floyd shouted.

"It's called a Marifallon," Martha told him.

"How is this even possible?"

"It's alien."

"What?"

"Just run!"

All of them paid heed, and ran behind Martha. Only the Doctor seemed to limp. But she was turned anyway, aiming the sonic at it, taking a reading of some sort.

"Doctor! What are you doing?" asked Ryan, who was concernedly hanging back with her.

"Trying to find out if it's…"

But then, to everyone's horror, even as they ran, the thing found them, and swooped down, an enormous, razor-sharp beak snapping open and shut uncomfortably close to their heads.

"Well, that answers my question," the Doctor said. "It's definitely got our scent!"

They ran and ran and ran, being snapped at, propelled tripping forward by the powerful gusts of wind produced by the Marifallon's wings. And, on the corner of 19th and Park Avenue, Martha spied a blue police box sitting unassumingly against a wall.

Even in this frantic state, the sight of the thing took her breath away. She was going to be in the TARDIS again, after all these years. With the Doctor. With a pulse-pounding, life/death thing literally nipping at their heels…

"Doctor! Is it unlocked?" she shouted

The Doctor extended the sonic screwdriver and the door snapped open.

Martha burst inside and ushered everyone in. She helped Floyd lay out Yaz on the floor, noticing gratefully that the floor was no longer the sharp metal grate that had lined it in her day.

At last, Ryan and the Doctor made it in, slammed the door shut behind them, just in time for them all to hear a loud _thump_ outside, as the creature slammed into the box.

The Doctor made a straight shot for the controls, and next thing they knew, they were in flight.

"Why don't you just dematerialise?" Martha asked.

"Because we want it to chase us, so we can lure it out of the city! If we just disappear, it will only find other humans to eat! Hold on, everyone!"

The TARDIS then reached a speed that seemed to pull everyone off their feet, except for the two physicians now on their knees, tending to Yaz. For several minutes, the TARDIS jostled this way and that as it always did when in flight

"What is happening?" Iggy shouted.

"We're leaving the planet," Martha told him. "It's the only way to distract it from humans."

"Are you shitting me?"

"No," Martha said. "Look around you! Does _any _of this look like bullshit to you?"

"All of it! And yet it's real!"

Iggy seemed delighted at this, and tightened his grip on the column he was clinging to, and also reached out for Camille.

"Helen… or, whoever you are, can I get some help here?" Floyd asked, as Yaz was beginning to wake. "How long ago did you give her the painkillers?"

Iggy and Camille held onto one another, Ryan stood at the console with the Doctor, and Martha and Floyd tried to keep Yaz comfortable and calm, while a giant, hungry butterfly pursued them out of the Earth's atmosphere.

And at last, the TARDIS calmed, and the Doctor said, "Okay, that's done it. Now we can dematerialise."

"Where are we?" Martha asked her.

"I thought it safest to get out of your solar system," she answered. "If we disappear now, the creature will be disoriented, and try to find somewhere else to land. I suppose I'd better alert its watchers. They might be able to find a feeding ground for it, within flight distance."

"We're in space," Iggy said. "Can I look outside?"

"Just a moment," the Doctor said. Then she pressed a few buttons, and the TARDIS made its signature grinding sound that almost made Martha burst into tears. Then she told Iggy, "Now you can. You can open the door, if you'd like. There's an airlock - you'll be safe."

He reverently walked toward the door, and looked outside. "Oh, my… this is…" he turned and faced his friends. "My husband is never going to believe this."

"Wait, where's Graham?" the Doctor asked.

"You're just now noticing?" Ryan laughed.

"Doctor?" Martha said. "Yasmin needs a hospital. Now."

* * *

**Hope you had at least a teeny-tiny increase of pulse rate there! Reviews are much much much appreciated - thank you so much for reading!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Final chapter, friends. Adventure was had, Yasmin is saved... **

**This isn't the most exciting thing in the world, but it should give you closure, and a few feels. :-) Enjoy!**

* * *

NINE

As of the following afternoon, Yasmin Khan was in stable condition at New Amsterdam, though sedated for the moment. Camille, the other woman they had saved from the wreckage, was being kept overnight for observation (by Martha), though unfortunately, Vivian's body had not been found by the excavation crew that had turned up at the site just after sun-up. Martha had used her clout as Helen Sharpe to get Camille secured into a private (read: posh) safe-house for women who have been battered, otherwise traumatised, and/or have issues with substance abuse. Any of these scenarios may or may not be the case for Camille, but Martha figured it wouldn't hurt.

The Doctor had already safely reported the status of the Marifallon to her friends who'd been tracking it, and she had been happy to pass on the news that they had it on their radar, and were working fast on finding it a sanctuary.

Graham and the Doctor sat vigil at Yaz's bedside, and they chatted with the woman whom _they_ knew as Martha Jones, currently on-shift as acting Medical Director, and her colleague, Iggy Frome. Ryan had gone off to find coffee, tea, or whatever, for the rest of them.

Iggy had been reluctant to leave the Doctor's side ever since seeing the inside of the TARDIS. With an extraordinary look of childish amazement on his face, he had asked her how it works, who she was, how it was all possible, and what interest she had in the collapsing building, how she knew Helen Sharpe…

…and she had answered. The Doctor had tried her best to help Iggy understand what he had seen. Martha had urged her to do so, wondering if Iggy's grasping these circumstances would help him in his professional capacity in future. The Doctor had thought it was something that shouldn't be discounted, and so with Graham and Martha's help, Iggy now understood that the TARDIS interior is in another dimension, time-travel is more than possible, and the Doctor is a troubleshooting alien. The actual physics of it were beyond him, but they were beyond most mortals.

"Keep it all more or less under your hat, though, yeah?" the Doctor requested.

"I'm a shrink. If I can't keep things confidential, then..."

When he saw the face of Floyd Reynolds appear in the glass between them and the hallway, then disappear again, Iggy stopped in mid-sentence, excused himself and went after him.

"Hey, Floyd," Iggy said, jogging toward him. "What's with the lurking?"

"Oh, I don't need to stick my nose in," Floyd said, riffing. "You're there, Helen's there – too many cooks, so to speak, you know?"

"Helen's an oncologist, and she's doing her Medical Director thing today," Iggy said. "And you're the one who patched up Yasmin. Don't you think you should check on her?"

"I will. Later."

"Oh, I see," Iggy sighed. "You're waiting for the weird people to leave. The people who represent phenomena you can't explain and would rather ignore."

"There are just too many people in there now, and she's being watched by a physician, so I don't see any reason to…"

"Face the fact that you met an alien last night? And basically saw Mothra shed its cocoon? And also saw a phone booth that's bigger on the inside, housing untold technology, and…"

"Stop right there, Iggy. The woman's not an alien, she's just…

"What? Just someone who knows how to defy physics? Just someone who knows about giant insects the size of buildings, and how to flee them, using…"

"I don't know what she is," Floyd said, shrugging hard.

"You know," Iggy argued. "In your heart of hearts, you know. You know what you saw. You know it's impossible, and yet, there it was! So, you know…"

"Look, maybe _you _can adapt to what we saw with wonder, and amazement, and open arms, but that's not me, okay? It's going to take me some time," Floyd said. "You're a psychiatrist. This plays right into your wheelhouse – dealing with the unexplainable workings of the universe. But I'm a surgeon. Everything I know is demonstrable, literally at my fingertips. And I was raised to believe, you know, that God is in His heaven, and mankind has dominion. I know that's not necessarily true, and but it says something about where I'm coming from, doesn't it?"

"Absolutely. I'm sorry I pushed. I understand you'll need some time," Iggy said, taking a step back from him, signaling _backing off._ "But you can't neglect your patient, man."

"I know. For the time being, will you just make sure Helen doesn't mind being my eyes and ears in the room, as long as she's going to sit and talk with her friends? If she leaves, she can call me," Floyd said. "Okay?"

"Okay," Iggy said, slapping his colleague and friend on the shoulder. "You got it."

"Thanks, Dr. Frome," said Dr. Reynolds. "And hey, maybe someday soon, we can talk about all this. But not today."

"I'd love that. My door is always open."

* * *

Martha had had to answer a call soon after Floyd and Iggy had their little heart-to-heart. The Medical Director (or acting Medical Director) of the largest public hospital in the U.S. was a busy person, indeed. Her "running" eventually brought her back to the ICU, where Yaz was still sedated, and now Ryan and Graham sat at her side.

"How is she?" asked Martha, looking at her monitors, logging into her chart, seeing nothing alarming.

"Dr. Reynolds was just here," Ryan said. "Said nothing new. She's stable, needs to be sedated until tomorrow morning, gave her more meds for pain, said to page him if we need anything."

"Okay. Good."

"He's a nice fella," Graham commented.

"He is," Martha agreed.

"I get the feeling he doesn't like us, though," Ryan said, frowning.

"I don't think it's you," Martha said. "Based on what I know of Floyd, I think it's probably the Doctor that gives him the creeps."

"Ah," Graham said. Then he laughed. "Really? I've never met anyone less creepy in my life."

Martha thought back over all the time she'd known the Doctor, both incarnations – male and female, frenetic and calm, tall and short, dark-haired and blonde. And actually, there had been times when the Doctor had creeped her out a bit, including when they first met, _and _the previous day! Being enigmatic, non-human, and brilliant, as it turned out, had its drawbacks.

And being possessed by the soul of a living sun will make anyone a little edgy.

"Really? I think she can be right creepy," Ryan said, eyes wide. "Don't tell her I said that."

"He…_she…_ they have their moments," Martha sighed. "And as far as Floyd goes, well… you know, the Doctor's world isn't for everyone. Someday, maybe you'll meet my mother. She'll give you an earful."

"It would be a pleasure," Graham said. "So, you're the Medical Director here? I thought you were just doing oncology."

"I'd _like_ to just be doing oncology, but as it turns out, one of the ways I'm currently fighting cancer is by filling in for our _actual_ Medical Director, who…"

"… has cancer?" he asked.

"Yep. Good guess."

"Is he a really bloody stubborn bloke named Max?"

"Yes, how'd you know?"

"I met him last night. And his wife," Graham said with a chuckle. "He was at the building site."

"He what?" Martha practically shouted.

"Yeah, he seemed quite concerned for your safety, _Dr. Sharpe,_" Graham whispered.

"God! Is he completely mad? That's just…" she sputtered.

"But I got him to go home," Graham said, patting her hand, comfortingly.

"What? How? Not even I could do that!"

"I wouldn't be so sure," Graham said, gently. "I think, in the end, you did."

"I did?"

"Mm-hm," Graham told her. "Either that, or he got _really _invested in the legacy of my late wife, Grace, for some reason."

"Excuse me?"

Ryan chuckled.

That's when the Doctor arrived again, and said, "Knock, knock. Any changes with our patient?"

"Not really," Ryan said. "Still sedated till the morning."

"Well, Martha, can I borrow you for a few minutes?" she asked.

"Of course," Martha said, walking through the frame of the glass doors. "What is it?"

"Does the acting Medical Director have the authority to lend me a blood lab for an hour or so?" the Doctor asked.

"She does," Martha answered. "Why?"

"It occurred to me that we should examine your blood," the Doctor said. "We didn't move through time, but you _were _in the TARDIS, and you _did _have some exposure to the Vortex."

"Oh yeah… damn it," Martha whispered.

"We don't want to take any chances that the Geadlicks can re-find you," the Doctor pointed out. "We wouldn't want you to have to uproot yourself _again,_ and change your name _again, _especially with all that you've got going for you here."

"Right," Martha sighed. "Okay, follow me."

* * *

The two old friends sat in the blood lab, waiting for the computer to produce results on Martha's white blood-cell count, lymphocytes, and the like.

"When do you reckon Yaz will be discharged?" the Doctor asked.

"If it were me, I'd release her in forty-eight hours, as long as she's responding well to the medication, the anaesthesia completely leaves her system, and her body isn't rejecting the stitches," Martha said. "But I'm not a surgeon. It'll be up to Dr. Reynolds. If you ever see him again, you can ask him."

"Right. He's avoiding me, isn't he?"

"Yeah, a bit," Martha said. "But he seems to be okay talking to your friends, so you could let Ryan and Graham handle all of the Dr. Reynolds-related work."

"I asked when Yaz would be released because, I was just wondering when you and I would have to say goodbye again," the Doctor said, her voice rather harried. "I don't fancy the idea of that."

"Me neither," Martha said. "Though, I have to say, I can't say I've come completely to terms with the new you."

"Understandable."

"But, you're clearly still you."

The Doctor smiled a bit sheepishly. "Do you still pine a bit?"

"For the man in pinstripes? Yeah. Every now and then," Martha admitted, flushing a little. "I'll admit it's difficult knowing I'll never see him again."

"I understand. But he and I are both time-travellers," the Doctor pointed out, nudging Martha gently with her elbow. "Never say never."

Martha smiled at the Doctor's little jab, realising she herself had been speaking about the 'old' Doctor as though he were a completely different person, merely a mutual acquaintance of theirs. That's definitely what it felt like, as reconciling this person with the person she'd known, especially considering the completely different effects the two incarnations had on her, was a pretty big task. At least, on a visceral level, if not on an intellectual level.

The fact was, her _brain_ knew perfectly well that this was all completely natural, that Time Lords were changeable by their very nature. And, she'd known on some level when last she'd seen 'her' Doctor, that day running from the Sontaran with Mickey, that she'd never see the Doctor again, as she'd known him. Her mind could grasp the similarities between the two incarnations, and the obvious fact that the Doctor had not fundamentally changed. She was good, she was brilliant, resourceful, ancient, energetic, troubled, flawed. It was only Martha's eyes and heart that had a hard time with it all.

But last night, climbing through that building, running from the Marifallon, flying in the TARDIS, it had felt very right, very familiar. It had definitely _felt_ like Life With The Doctor, and she had genuinely enjoyed it.

"Well, Martha, one of the reasons I don't fancy having to say goodbye again is, I'd really like to invite you aboard, but I think I know what you'll say," the Doctor said.

Martha took her hand, and squeezed it between both of hers, affectionately. "Yeah, I'm sorry, but I appreciate the sentiment. And you've got a pretty crowded house as it is!" she commented.

"I suppose I do! Only one other time have I had quite so many travelling with me. I mean, four of us in the TARDIS is almost a full crew!"

"I don't fit in that life, Doctor," Martha said. "And that life doesn't fit into my life, frankly."

"Right. I know. Job, boyfriend… hiding from Geadlicks. The lymphocyte problem alone should be enough to keep you away from _that life._"

"So, it's a good thing we've got that out of the way," Martha said, now nudging the Doctor playfully. "We can enjoy the next few days together without the dread of something heartbreaking happening when you leave."

"That's true!"

Something pinged just then, and the Doctor read the results.

"Oh boy," Martha breathed, her voice trembling just a tad. She was genuinely nervous that her lymphocytes might again betray her, though she knew unequivocally that it had all been worth it, to save lives, rid the city of the Marifallon, and have one more run with the Doctor.

"Everything's normal," the Doctor announced happily.

"Thank God!" Martha breathed, and they hugged.

"Though, if you don't mind, I'm going to go ahead and get in touch with Kate Stewart, and let her know what's happened. You should test yourself once a month or so for a few years, just in case. Hopefully, we can reconstitute the original drugs you used back then, if need be."

"Okay," Martha shrugged. "Tell her I said hello."

The two of them began to clean up the room, sanitise the equipment as needed, and they chatted as they did so.

"I don't suppose there's anything you'd like to do, that you haven't already done, while you're here in New York," Martha asked her.

"Actually, I have to step pretty lightly in New York," the Doctor said. "Certain neighbourhoods have rips in time because of me and some of my friends. Actually, Weeping Angels caused that one, not us, but you know… a time traveller's got to do what a time traveller's got to do."

"What?" Martha shrieked. "There are Weeping Angels in New York?"

"Not anymore, don't worry. No-one is in danger. My friends caused a time paradox that makes me and the TARDIS bristle a bit – she hates landing here. It's like trying to put two magnets together at the same pole. Actually, that's a pretty good analogy!"

"I'll take your word for that one."

"Anyway, the farther away we get form 1938, the easier it is for us to land here, and not feel like we're going to implode."

"You've been feeling like that this whole time?"

"Just sporadically," the Doctor shrugged. "Nothing to write home about. But, if a time rip bled out, and/or I got too close to the Upper East Side… well…"

"Don't tell me anymore. I get it," Martha said, with a chuckle.

Yeah, this was definitely still the same person.

"Besides, I'd like to stay at Yaz's side until she's ready to go," the Doctor said.

"Would that preclude you from having a sandwich with me in the canteen, nowish? Barring any Medical Director crises… knock wood."

"It would not," the Doctor chirped. "I'll let Graham and Ryan know, and then I'll sit a shift while they have a bite. Meet you down there?"

"Sounds good."

And Martha walked down the hall, boarded the lift, and got ready to have at least another forty-eight hours' worth of adventures with the Doctor. Even if all they did was sit.

* * *

**Remember: reviews are love! Thank you for reading!**


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